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H. C. Ifage & (tontpanjj 


New England Building 


Boston, Mass. 




& 



Ctjc ©taut Scissors 


35 b 

Hnnte jfellows Jobnston 

< t 

AUTHOR OF THE LITTLE COLONEL SERIES, “ BIG 
BROTHER,” ‘‘JOEL: A BOY OF GALILEE,” 

“ ASA HOLMES,” BTC. 



Illustrated in Colour by 

jfranfc G. /ifcerrUl 
Boston 

X. c, page $, Company 

MDCCCCVI 





UUKARY f.f CONGRESS 
TwcCoutes Received 

AUG 27 IH06 

Cooynp’ni Fniry 
CLASS yfo AAc. 

/!&.±qso 


>PY A. 


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COLONIAL PRESS 

Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds If Co. 
Boston, U.S.A. 



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Contents 

CHAPTER 

PAGE 

I. 

In the Pear-tree 

. I 

II. 

A New Fairy-tale . 

. 18 

III. 

Behind the Great Gate 

• 34 

IV. 

A Letter and a Meeting . 

. 64 

V. 

A Thanksgiving Barbecue 

. 80 

VI. 

Joyce Plays Ghost . 

. 103 

VII. 

Old “ Number Thirty-one ” . 

. 126 

VIII. 

Christmas Plans and an Accident 

. 146 

IX. 

A Great Discovery . 

. 164 

X. 

Christmas .... 

. 187 


& 





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Xist of ifull = page Ullustra* 
tlons in dolour 

PAGE 

“ ‘ Oh, you must be Jules,’ she cried ” 

{See page yd) . . . Frontispiece 

“ The peddler rang the bell of the gate 
several times ” .... 

“ In its place stood a beautiful Fairy 
with filmy wings ” .... 

“ He was driving two unruly goats ” . 

“ ‘ There’s all that is left of my Christ- 
mas money,’ she said, sadly” 

“ Brossard sank on his knees in a 
shivering heap ” .... 

“ Taking one of the thin, blue-veined 
hands in hers ” 

“ ‘ There she is ! That’s Number 
Thirty-one, her very own self’ ” . 


13 

23 

44 

98 


142 


171 






®J)e ©ta«t Stissors 

¥ 


CHAPTER I 

IN THE PEAR-TREE 

jOYCE was crying, up in old 
Monsieur Greville’s tallest 
pear-tree. She had gone 
down to the farthest cor- 
ner of the garden, out of 
sight of the house, for she 
did not want any one to know that she 
was miserable enough to cry. 

She was tired of the garden with the 
high stone wall around it, that made her 
feel like a prisoner; she was tired of 




^ (Siant Seisms & 

French verbs and foreign faces; she was 
tired of France, and so homesick for her 
mother and Jack and Holland and the 
baby, that she couldn’t help crying. No 
wonder, for she was only twelve years 
old, and she had never been out of the 
little Western village where she was born, 
until the day she started abroad with her 
Cousin Kate. 

Now she sat perched up on a limb in 
a dismal bunch, her chin in her hands and 
her elbows on her kne^s. It was a gray 
Mi afternoon in November; the air was 
7 frosty, although the laurel-bushes in the 
garden were all in bloom. 

“ I s’pect there is snow on the ground 
at home,” thought Joyce, “ and there’s a 
big, cheerful fire in the sitting-room 
\ grate. 

;(| “Holland and the baby are shelling 
corn, and Mary is popping it. Dear me! 

I can smell it just as plain! Jack will be 


2 


W )t Giant Scissors 






coming in from the post-office pretty 
soon, and maybe he’ll have one of my 
letters. Mother will read it out loud, and 
there they’ll all be, thinking that I am 
having such a fine time; that it is such 
a grand thing for me to be abroad study- 
ing, and having dinner served at night 
in so many courses, and all that sort of 
thing. They don’t know that I am sit- 
ting up here in this pear-tree, lonesome 
enough to die. Oh, if I could only go 
back home and see them for even five 
minutes,” she sobbed, “ but I can’t! I 
can’t! There’s a whole wide ocean be- 
tween us ! ” 

She shut her eyes, and leaned back 
against the tree as that desolate feeling 
of homesickness settled over her like a 
great miserable ache. Then she found 
that shutting her eyes, and thinking very 
hard about the little brown house at 
home, seemed to bring it into plain sight. 

3 


^ Wi )t ffiiant gctesorg ^ 



It was like opening a book, and seeing 
picture after picture as she turned the 
pages. 

There they were in the kitchen, wash- 
ing dishes, she and Mary; and Mary was 
standing on a soap-box to make her tall 
enough to handle the dishes easily. How 
her funny little braid of yellow hair 
bobbed up and down as she worked, and 
how her dear little freckled face beamed, 
as they told stories to each other to make 
the work seem easier. 

Mary’s stories all began the same way: 
“ If I had a witch with a wand, this is 
what we would do.” The witch with a 
wand had come to Joyce in the shape of 
Cousin Kate Ware, and that coming was 
one of the pictures that Joyce could see 
now, as she thought about it with her 
eyes closed. 

There was Holland swinging on the 
, waiting for her to come home from 
4 


)t ffitant Scissors 




& 


school, and trying to tell her by excited 
gestures, long before she was within 
speaking distance, that some one was 
in the parlour. The baby had on his best 
plaid kilt and new tie, and the tired little 
mother was sitting talking in the parlour, 
an unusual thing for her. Joyce could 
see herself going up the path, swinging 
her sunbonnet by the strings and taking 
hurried little bites of a big June apple in 
order to finish it before going into the 
house. Now she was sitting on the sofa 
beside Cousin Kate, feeling very awk- 
ward and shy with her little brown fin- 
gers clasped in this stranger’s soft white 
hand. 

She had heard that Cousin Kate was 
a very rich old maid, who had spent 
years abroad, studying music and lan- 
guages, and she had expected to see a 
stout, homely woman with bushy eye- 
brows, like Miss Teckla Schaum, who 
5 


gfl )t ffitant Scissor* 


played the church organ, and taught 
German in the High School. 

But Cousin Kate was altogether unlike 
Miss Teckla. She was tall and slender, 
she was young-looking and pretty, and 
there was a stylish air about her, from 
the waves of her soft golden brown hair 
to the bottom of her tailor-made gown, 
that was not often seen in this little 
Western village. 

Joyce saw herself glancing admiringly 
at Cousin Kate, and then pulling down 
her dress as far as possible, painfully 
conscious that her shoes were untied, and 
white with dust. The next picture was 
several days later. She and Jack were 
playing mumble-peg outside under the 
window by the lilac-bushes, and the little 
mother was just inside the door, bending 
over a pile of photographs that Cousin 
Kate had dropped in her lap. Cousin 
Kate was saying, “ This beautiful old 
6 


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Wi )t ffiiant Scissors ^ 

French villa is where I expect to spend 
the winter, Aunt Emily. These are views 
of Tours, the town that lies across the 
river Loire from it, and these are some 
of the chateaux near by that I intend to 
visit. They say the purest French in the 
world is spoken there. I have prevailed 
on one of the dearest old ladies that ever 
lived to give me rooms with her. She and 
her husband live all alone in this big 
country place, so I shall have to provide 
against loneliness by taking my company 
with me. Will you let me have Joyce 
for a year? ” 

Jack and she stopped playing in sheer 
astonishment, while Cousin Kate went 
on to explain how many advantages she 
could give the little girl to whom she 
had taken such a strong fancy. 

Looking through the lilac-bushes, Joyce 
could see her mother wipe her eyes and 
say, “ It seems like pure providence, 
7 


ffif )t (Slant Scissors 


Kate, and I can’t stand in the child’s 
way. She’ll have to support herself soon, 
and ought to be prepared for it; but she’s 
the oldest of the five, you know, and she 
has been like my right hand ever since 
her father died. There’ll not be a minute 
while she is gone that I shall not miss 
her and wish her back. She’s the life and 
sunshine of the whole home.” 

Then Joyce could see the little brown 
house turned all topsyturvy in the whirl 
of preparation that followed, and the 
next thing, she was standing on the plat- 
form at the station, with her new steamer 
trunk beside her. Half the town was 
there to bid her good-bye. In the excite- 
ment of finding herself a person of such 
importance she forgot how much she was 
leaving behind her, until looking up, she 
saw a tender, wistful smile on her moth- 
er’s face, sadder than any tears. 

Luckily the locomotive whistled just 
8 


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I 




Wi )t CKiant Scissors 


& 


then, and the novelty of getting aboard 
a train for the first time, helped her to 
be brave at the parting. She stood on 
the rear platform of the last car, waving 
her handkerchief to the group at the sta- 
tion as long as it was in sight, so that 
the last glimpse her mother should have 
of her, was with her bright little face all 
ashine. 

All these pictures passed so rapidly 
through Joyce’s mind, that she had re- 
traced the experiences of the last three 
months in as many minutes. Then, some- 
how, she felt better. The tears had 
washed away the ache in her throat. She 
wiped her eyes and climbed like a squirrel 
to the highest limb that could bear her 
weight. 

This was not the first time that the old 
pear-tree had been shaken by Joyce’s 
grief, and it knew that her spells of home- 
sickness always ended in this way. There 
9 



®i)C Giant Scissors 




she sat, swinging her plump legs back 
and forth, her long light hair blowing 
over the shoulders of her blue jacket, and 
her saucy little mouth puckered into a 
soft whistle. She could see over the high 
wall now. The sun was going down 
behind the tall Lombardy poplars that 
lined the road, and in a distant field two 
peasants still at work reminded her of 
the picture of “ The Angelus.” They 
seemed like acquaintances on account of 
the resemblance, for there was a copy of 
the picture in her little bedroom at home. 

All around her stretched quiet fields, 
sloping down to the ancient village of 
St. Symphorien and the river Loire. 
Just across the river, so near that she 
could hear the ringing of the cathedral 
bell, lay the famous old town of Tours. 
There was something in these country 
sights and sounds that soothed her with 
their homely cheerfulness. The crowing 

IO 


& 


^ Wl ) t (Siant Scissors ^ 

of a rooster and the barking of a dog fell 
on her ear like familiar music. 

“ It’s a comfort to hear something 
speak English,” she sighed, “ even if it’s 
nothing but a chicken. I do wish that 
Cousin Kate wouldn’t be so particular 
about my using French all day long. 
The one little half-hour at bedtime when 
she allows me to speak English isn’t a 
drop in the bucket. It’s a mercy that I 
had studied French some before I came, 
or I would have a lonesome time. I 
wouldn’t be able to ever talk at all.” 

It was getting cold up in the pear-tree. 
Joyce shivered and stepped down to the 
limb below, but paused in her descent 
to watch a peddler going down the road 
with a pack on his back. 

“ Oh, he is stopping at the gate with 
the big scissors ! ” she cried, so interested 
that she spoke aloud. “ I must wait to 
see if it opens.” 


ii 




2C|je ffitant Scissors 


& 



There was something mysterious about 
that gate across the road. Like Mon- 
sieur Greville’s, it was plain and solid, 
reaching as high as the wall. Only the 
lime-trees and the second-story windows 
of the house could be seen above it. On 
the top it bore an iron medallion, on 
which was fastened a huge pair of scis- 
sors. There was a smaller pair on each 
gable of the house, also. 

During the three months that Joyce 
had been in Monsieur Greville’s home, 
she had watched every day to see it open ; 
but if any one ever entered or left the 
place, it was certainly by some other way 
than this queer gate. 

What lay beyond it, no one could tell. 
She had questioned Gabriel the coach- 
man, and Berthe the maid, in vain. Ma- 
dame Greville said that she remembered 
having heard, when a child, that the man 
who built it was named Ciseaux, and that 


12 



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was why the symbol of this name was 
hung over the gate and on the gables. 
He had been regarded as half-crazy by 
his neighbours. The place was still 
owned by a descendant of his, who had 
gone to Algiers, and left it in charge of 
two servants. 

The peddler rang the bell of the gate 
several times, but failing to arouse any 
one, shouldered his pack and went off 
grumbling. Then Joyce climbed down 
and walked slowly up the gravelled path 
to the house. Cousin Kate had just come 
back from Tours in the pony cart, and 
was waiting in the door to see if Gabriel 
had all the bundles that she had brought 
out with her. 

Joyce followed her admiringly into the 
house. She wished that she could grow 
up to look exactly like Cousin Kate, and 
wondered if she would ever wear such 
stylish silk-lined skirts, and catch them 
13 


c (Giant Scissors 




up in such an airy, graceful way when 
she ran up-stairs; and if she would ever 
have a Paris hat with long black feathers, 
and always wear a bunch of sweet violets 
on her coat. 

She looked at herself in Cousin Kate’s 
mirror as she passed it, and sighed. 
“ Well, I am better-looking than when I 
left home,” she thought. “ That’s one 
comfort. My face isn’t freckled now, and 
my hair is more becoming this way than 
in tight little pigtails, the way I used to 
wear it.” 

Cousin Kate, coming up behind her, 
looked over her head and smiled at the 
attractive reflection of Joyce’s rosy cheeks 
and straightforward gray eyes. Then she 
stopped suddenly and put her arms 
around her, saying, “ What’s the matter, 
dear? You have been crying.” 

“ Nothing,” answered Joyce, but there 
was a quaver in her voice, and she turned 


0 


®tj e (Giant Scissors 






her head aside. Cousin Kate put her hand 
under the resolute little chin, and tilted 
it until she could look into the eyes that 
dropped under her gaze. “You have 
been crying,” she said again, this time 
in English, “ crying because you are 
homesick. I wonder if it would not be 
a good occupation for you to open all 
the bundles that I got this afternoon. 
There is a saucepan in one, and a big 
spoon in the other, and all sorts of good 
things in the others, so that we can make 
some molasses candy here in my room, 
over the open fire. While it cooks you 
can curl up in the big armchair and listen 
to a fairy-tale in the firelight. Would 
you like that, little one? ” 

“Oh, yes!” cried Joyce, ecstatically. 
“ That’s what they are doing at home 
this minute, I am sure. We always make 
candy every afternoon in the winter 
time.” 

15 


^ ffiiant &ciggorg ^ 

Presently the saucepan was sitting on 
the coals, and Joyce’s little pug nose was 
rapturously sniffing the odour of bubbling 
molasses. 

“ I know what I’d like the story to 
be about,” she said, as she stirred the 
delicious mixture with the new spoon. 

“ Make up something about the big gate 
across the road, with the scissors on 
it.” 

Cousin Kate crossed the room, and sat 
down by the window, where she could 
look out and see the top of it. 

“ Let me think for a few minutes,” she 
said. “ I have been very much interested 
in that old gate myself.” 

She thought so long that the candy 
was done before she was ready to tell 
the story; but while it cooled in plates 
outside on the window-sill, she drew 
Joyce to a seat beside her in the chim- 
ney-corner. With her feet on the fender, 

16 


^ Wqz &iant .Scissors & 

and the child’s head on her shoulder, she 
began this story, and the firelight, danc- 
ing on the walls, showed a smile on 
Joyce’s contented little face. 



17 



Wjt ffiiant Scfeg org ^ 


CHAPTER II 

NEW FAIRY-TALE 

NCE upon a time, on a far 
island of the sea, there 
lived a King with seven 
sons. The three eldest 
were tall and dark, with 
eyes like eagles, and hair 
like a crow’s wing for blackness, and no 
princes in all the land were so strong and 
fearless as they. The three youngest 
sons were tall and fair, with eyes as blue 
as corn-flowers, and locks like the sum- 
mer sun for brightness, and no princes in 
all the land were so brave and beautiful 
as they. 



18 


^ Eijt fflfiant .Scissors ^ 

But the middle son was little and lorn; 
he was neither dark nor fair; he was 
neither handsome nor strong. So when 
the King saw that he never won in the 
tournaments nor led in the boar hunts, 
nor sang to his lute among the ladies of 
the court, he drew his royal robes around 
him, and henceforth frowned on Ethel- 
ried. 

To each of his other sons he gave a 
portion of his kingdom, armour, and 
plumes, a prancing charger, and a trusty 
sword; but to Ethelried he gave noth- 
ing. When the poor prince saw his 
brothers riding out into the world to 
win their fortunes, he fain would have 
followed. Throwing himself on his knees 
before the King, he cried, “ Oh, royal 
Sire, bestow upon me also a sword and 
a steed, that I may up and away to fol- 
low my brethren.” 

But the King laughed him to scorn. 
19 


^ (Slant Scissors ^ 


“ Thou a sword! ” he quoth. “ Thou who 
hast never done a deed of valour in all 
thy life! In sooth thou shalt have one, 
but it shall be one befitting thy maiden 
size and courage, if so small a weapon 
can be found in all my kingdom! ” 

Now just at that moment it happened 
that the Court Tailor came into the room 
to measure the King for a new man- 
tle of ermine. Forthwith the grinning 
Jester began shrieking with laughter, so 
that the bells upon his motley cap were 
all set a- jangling. 

“What now, Fool?” demanded the 
King. 

“ I did but laugh to think the sword 
of Ethelried had been so quickly found,” 
responded the Jester, and he pointed to 
the scissors hanging from the Tailor’s 
girdle. 

“ By my troth,” exclaimed the King, 
“it shall be even as thou sayest!” and 


20 


^ (Kiant Scissors ^ 


he commanded that the scissors be taken 
from the Tailor, and buckled to the belt 
of Ethelried. 

“ Not until thou hast proved thyself a 
prince with these shalt thou come into 
thy kingdom/’ he swore with a mighty 
oath. “ Until that far day, now get thee 
gone ! ” 

So Ethelried left the palace, and wan- 
dered away over mountain and moor 
with a heavy heart. No one knew that 
he was a prince; no fireside offered him 
welcome; no lips gave him a friendly 
greeting. The scissors hung useless and 
rusting by his side. 

One night as he lay in a deep forest, 
too unhappy to sleep, he heard a noise 
near at hand in the bushes. By the light 
of the moon he saw that a ferocious wild 
beast had been caught in a hunter’s snare, 
and was struggling to free itself from the 
heavy net. His first thought was to slay 


21 


ffiiant Scissors 


the animal, for he had had no meat for 
many days. Then he bethought himself 
that he had no weapon large enough. 

While he stood gazing at the strug- 
gling beast, it turned to him with such 
a beseeching look in its wild eyes that 
he was moved to pity. 

“ Thou shalt have thy liberty,” he 
cried, “ even though thou shouldst rend 
me in pieces the moment thou art free. 
Better dead than this craven life to which 
my father hath doomed me ! ” 

So he set to work with the little scis- 
sors to cut the great ropes of the net 
in twain. At first each strand seemed as 
hard as steel, and the blades of the scis- 
sors were so rusty and dull that he could 
scarcely move them. Great beads of 
sweat stood out on his brow as he bent 
himself to the task. 

Presently, as he worked, the blades 
began to grow sharper and sharper, and 




SCJje ffitant Scissors 




& 

brighter and brighter, and longer and 
longer. By the time that the last rope 
was cut the scissors were as sharp as 
a broadsword, and half as long as his 
body. 

At last he raised the net to let the 
beast go free. Then he sank on his knees 
in astonishment. It had suddenly dis- 
appeared, and in its place stood a beau- 
tiful Fairy with filmy wings, which shone 
like rainbows in the moonlight. 

“ Prince Ethelried,” she said in a voice 
that was like a crystal bell’s for sweet- 
ness, “ dost thou not know that thou art 
in the domain of a frightful Ogre? It 
was he who changed me into the form of 
a wild beast, and set the snare to capture 
me. But for thy fearlessness and faith- 
ful perseverance in the task which thou 
didst in pity undertake, I must have per- 
ished at dawn.” 

At this moment there was a distant 
23 


(Slant gctesorg ^ 

rumbling as of thunder. “ ’Tis the 
Ogre!” cried the Fairy. “We must 
hasten.” Seizing the scissors that lay on 
the ground where Ethelried had dropped 
them, she opened and shut them several 
times, exclaiming: 

" Scissors, grow a giant’s height 
And save us from the Ogre’s might!” 

Immediately they grew to an enormous 
size, and, with blades extended, shot 
through the tangled thicket ahead of 
them, cutting down everything that stood 
in their way, — bushes, stumps, trees, 
vines ; nothing could stand before the 
fierce onslaught of those mighty blades. 

The Fairy darted down the path thus 
opened up, and Ethelried followed as fast 
as he could, for the horrible roaring was 
rapidly coming nearer. At last they 
reached a wide chasm that bounded the 
Ogre’s domain. Once across that, they 
24 


®fje ffitant Scissors 




& 

would be out of his power, but it seemed 
impossible to cross. Again the Fairy 
touched the scissors, saying: 

“ Giant scissors, bridge the path, 

And save us from the Ogre’s wrath.” 

Again the scissors grew longer and 
longer, until they lay across the chasm 
like a shining bridge. Ethelried hurried 
across after the Fairy, trembling and 
dizzy, for the Ogre was now almost upon 
them. As soon as they were safe on the 
other side, the Fairy blew upon the scis- 
sors, and, presto, they became shorter 
and shorter until they were only the 
length of an ordinary sword. 

“ Here,” she said, giving them into 
his hands ; “ because thou wast perse- 

vering and fearless in setting me free, 
these shall win for thee thy heart’s desire. 
But remember that thou canst not keep 
them sharp and shining unless they are 
25 


(Giant .Scissors 




used at least once each day in some un- 
selfish service.” 

Before he could thank her she had van- 
ished, and he was left in the forest alone. 
He could see the Ogre standing powerless 
to hurt him, on the other side of the 
chasm, and gnashing his teeth, each one 
of which was as big as a millstone. 

The sight was so terrible that he 
turned on his heel, and fled away as fast 
as his feet could carry him. By the time 
he reached the edge of the forest he was 
very tired, and ready to faint from hun- 
ger. His heart’s greatest desire being 
for food, he wondered if the scissors 
could obtain it for him as the Fairy had 
promised. He had spent his last coin 
and knew not where to go for another. 

Just then he spied a tree, hanging full 
of great, yellow apples. By standing on 
tiptoe he could barely reach the lowest 
one with his scissors. He cut off an 
26 


0 


®ije ffiant Scissors 


& 


apple, and was about to take a bite, when 
an old Witch sprang out of a hollow 
tree across the road. 

“ So you are the thief who has been 
stealing my gold apples all this last fort- 
night! ” she exclaimed. “ Well, you shall 
never steal again, that I promise you. 
Ho, Frog-eye Fearsome, seize on him and 
drag him into your darkest dungeon ! ” 

At that, a hideous-looking fellow, with 
eyes like a frog’s, green hair, and horrid 
clammy webbed fingers, clutched him 
before he could turn to defend himself. 
He was thrust into the dungeon and left 
there all day. 

At sunset, Frog-eye Fearsome opened 
the door to slide in a crust and a cup of 
water, saying in a croaking voice, “You 
shall be hanged in the morning, hanged 
by the neck until you are quite dead.” 
Then he stopped to run his webbed 
gers through his damp green hair, 

27 



s^ ^e^gtant <gctssorg^ 


grin at the poor captive Prince, as if he 
enjoyed his suffering. But the next morn- 
ing no one came to take him to the gal- 
lows, and he sat all day in total darkness. 
At sunset Frog-eye Fearsome opened the 
door again to thrust in another crust and 
some water and say, “ In the morning you 
shall be drowned; drowned in the Witch’s 
mill-pond with a great stone tied to your 
heels.” 

Again the croaking creature stood and 
gloated over his victim, then left him to 
the silence of another long day in the 
dungeon. The third day he opened the 
door and hopped in, rubbing his webbed 
hands together with fiendish pleasure, 
saying, “You are to have no food and 
drink to-night, for the Witch has thought 
of a far more horrible punishment for 
you. In the morning I shall surely come 
again, and then — beware ! ” 

Now as he stopped to grin once more 
28 


®{ )t (Slant Scissors 






at the poor Prince, a Fly darted in, and, 
blinded by the darkness of the dungeon, 
flew straight into a spider’s web, above 
the head of Ethelried. 

“ Poor creature ! ” thought Ethelried. 
“ Thou shalt not be left a prisoner in 
this dismal spot while I have the power 
to help thee.” He lifted the scissors and 
with one stroke destroyed the web, and 
gave the Fly its freedom. 

As soon as the dungeon had ceased to 
echo with the noise that Frog-eye Fear- 
some made in banging shut the heavy 
door, Ethelried heard a low buzzing near 
his ear. It was the Fly, which had 
alighted on his shoulder. 

“ Let an insect in its gratitude teach 
you this,” buzzed the Fly. “ To-morrow, 
if you remain here, you must certainly 
meet your doom, for the Witch never 
keeps a prisoner past the third night. 
But escape is possible. Your prison door 
29 




(Siant Scissors 


is of iron, but the shutter which bars the 
window is only of wood. Cut your way 
out at midnight, and I will have a friend 
in waiting to guide you to a place of 
safety. A faint glimmer of light on the 
opposite wall shows me the keyhole. I 
shall make my escape thereat and go to 
repay thy unselfish service to me. But 
know that the scissors move only when 
bidden in rhyme. Farewell. ,, 

The Prince spent all the following time 
until midnight trying to think of a suit- 
able verse to say to the scissors. The 
art of rhyming had been neglected in his 
early education, and it was not until the 
first cockcrowing began that he suc- 
ceeded in making this one: 

“ Giant scissors, serve me well, 

And save me from the Witch’s spell!” 

As he uttered the words the scissors 
leaped out of his hand, and began to 
30 


& 


2tlje ffliant Scissors 




& 

cut through the wooden shutters as easily 
as through a cheese. In a very short 
time the Prince had crawled through the 
opening. There he stood, outside the 
dungeon, but it was a dark night and 
he knew not which way to turn. 

He could hear Frog-eye Fearsome 
snoring like a tempest up in the watch- 
tower, and the old Witch was talking in 
her sleep in seven languages. While he 
stood looking around him in bewilder- 
ment, a Firefly alighted on his arm. 
Flashing its little lantern in the Prince’s 
face, it cried, “ This way ! My friend, 
the Fly, sent me to guide you to a place 
of safety. Follow me and trust entirely 
to my guidance.” 

The Prince flung his mantle over his 
shoulder, and followed on with all pos- 
sible speed. They stopped first in the 
Witch’s orchard, and the Firefly held its 
lantern up while the Prince filled his 
31 


|N ^ Ql\)t (Slant Scissors ^ 

pockets with the fruit. The apples were 
gold with emerald leaves, and the cherries 
were rubies, and the grapes were great 
bunches of amethyst. When the Prince 
had filled his pockets, he had enough 
wealth to provide for all his wants for at 
least a twelvemonth. 

The Firefly led him on until they came 
to a town where was a fine inn. There 
he left him, and flew off to report the 
Prince’s safety to the Fly and receive 
the promised reward. 

Here Ethelried stayed for many weeks, 
living like a king on the money that the 
fruit jewels brought him. All this time 
the scissors were becoming little and 
rusty, because he never once used them, 
as the Fairy bade him, in unselfish serv- 
ice for others. But one day he bethought 
himself of her command, and started out 
to seek some opportunity to help some- 
body. 


32 


(Slant .Scissors 




& 


Soon he came to a tiny hut where a 
sick man lay moaning, while his wife and 
children wept beside him. “ What is to 
become of me?” cried the poor peasant. 
“ My grain must fall and rot in the field 
from overripeness because I have not the 
strength to rise and harvest it; then in- 
deed must we all starve.” 

Ethelried heard him, and that night, 
when the moon rose, he stole into the 
field to cut it down with the giant scis- 
sors. They were so rusty from long idle- 
ness that he could scarcely move them. 
He tried to think of some rhyme with 
which to command them; but it had been 
so long since he had done any thinking, 
except for his own selfish pleasure, that 
his brain refused to work. 

However, he toiled on all night, slowly 
cutting down the grain stalk by stalk. 
Toward morning the scissors became 
brighter and sharper, until they finally 
33 




gHj e (Kiant Scissors ^ 


began to open and shut of their own 
accord. The whole field was cut by sun- 
rise. Now the peasant’s wife had risen 
very early to go down to the spring and 
dip up some cool water for her husband 
to drink. She came upon Ethelried as 
he was cutting the last row of the grain, 
and fell on her knees to thank him. From 
that day the peasant and all his family 
were firm friends of Ethelried’s, and 
would have gone through fire and water 
to serve him. 

After that he had many adventures, 
and he was very busy, for he never again 
forgot what the Fairy had said, that only 
unselfish service each day could keep the 
scissors sharp and shining. When the 
shepherd lost a little lamb one day on 
the mountain, it was Ethelried who found 
it caught by the fleece in a tangle of cruel 
thorns. When he had cut it loose and 
carried it home, the shepherd also became 
34 



^ gTije (Slant grigsorg^$ 

his firm friend, and would have gone 
through fire and water to serve him. 

The grandame whom he supplied with 
fagots, the merchant whom he rescued 
from robbers, the King’s councillor to 
whom he gave aid, all became his friends. 
Up and down the land, to beggar or lord, 
homeless wanderer or high-born dame, 
he gladly gave unselfish service all un- 
sought, and such as he helped straight- 
way became his friends. 

Day by day the scissors grew sharper 
and sharper and ever more quick to 
spring forward at his bidding. 

One day a herald dashed down the 
highway, shouting through his silver 
trumpet that a beautiful Princess had 
been carried away by the Ogre. She was 
the only child of the King of this coun- 
try, and the knights and nobles of all 
other realms and all the royal potentates 
were prayed to come to her rescue. To 
35 


^ ffiiant .Scissors ^ 


him who could bring her back to her 
father’s castle should be given the throne 
and kingdom, as well as the Princess her- 
self. 

So from far and near, indeed from 
almost every country under the sun, came 
knights and princes to fight the Ogre. 
One by one their brave heads were cut 
off and stuck on poles along the moat 
that surrounded the castle. 

Still the beautiful Princess languished 
in her prison. Every night at sunset she 
was taken up to the roof for a glimpse of 
the sky, and told to bid good-bye to the 
sun, for the next morning would surely 
be her last. Then she would wring her 
lily-white hands and wave a sad farewell 
to her home, lying far to the westward. 
When the knights saw this they would 
rush down to the chasm and sound a 
challenge to the Ogre. 

They were brave men, and they would 
36 


Efre ffiiant Seisms ^ 

not have feared to meet the fiercest wild 
beasts, but many shrunk back when the 
Ogre came rushing out. They dared not 
meet in single combat, this monster with 
the gnashing teeth, each one of which 
was as big as a millstone. 

Among those who drew back were 
Ethelried’s brothers (the three that were 
dark and the three that were fair). They 
would not acknowledge their fear. They 
said, “ We are only waiting to lay some 
wily plan to capture the Ogre.” 

After several days Ethelried reached 
the place on foot. “ See him,” laughed 
one of the brothers that was dark t© one 
that was fair. “ He comes afoot; no 
prancing steed, no waving plumes, no 
trusty sword; little and lorn, he is not 
fit to be called a brother to princes.” 

But Ethelried heeded not their ta 
He dashed across the drawbridge, 
opening his scissors, cried: 

37 



gHje (Siant .Scissors 




& 


“Giant scissors, rise in power! 

Grant me my heart’s desire this hour! ” 

The crowds on the other side held their 
breath as the Ogre rushed out, brandish- 
ing a club as big as a church steeple. 
Then Whack! Bang! The blows of the 
scissors, warding off the blows of the 
mighty club, could be heard for miles 
around. 

At last Ethelried became so exhausted 
that he could scarcely raise his hand, and 
it was plain to be seen that the scissors 
could not do battle much longer. By 
this time a great many people, attracted 
by the terrific noise, had come running 
up to the moat. The news had spread 
far and wide that Ethelried was in dan- 
ger; so every one whom he had ever 
served dropped whatever he was doing, 
and ran to the scene of the battle. The 
peasant was there, and the shepherd, and 
the lords and beggars and high-born 
38 


GDI )e ffiiant Scissors 




& 


dames, all those whom Ethelried had ever 
befriended. 

As they saw that the poor Prince was 
about to be vanquished, they all began 
a great lamentation, and cried out bit- 
terly. 

“ He saved my harvest,” cried one. 
“ He found my lamb,” cried another. 
“ He showed me a greater kindness still,” 
shouted a third. And so they went on, 
each telling of some unselfish service that 
the Prince had rendered him. Their 
voices all joined at last into such a roar 
of gratitude that the scissors were given 
fresh strength on account of it. They 
grew longer and longer, and stronger and 
stronger, until with one great swoop they 
sprang forward and cut the ugly old 
Ogre’s head from his shoulders. 

Every cap was thrown up, and such 
cheering rent the air as has never been 
heard since. They did not know his 
39 


®fjc (Giant Scissors 


name, they did not know that he was 
Prince Ethelried, but they knew by his 
valour that there was royal blood in his 
veins. So they all cried out long and 
loud: 

“ Long live the Prince ! Prince Ci- 
seaux ! ” 

Then the King stepped down from his 
throne and took off his crown to give 
to the conqueror, but Ethelried put it 
aside. 

“ Nay,” he said. “ The only kingdom 
that I crave is the kingdom of a loving 
heart and a happy fireside. Keep all but 
the Princess.” 

So the Ogre was killed, and the Prince 
came into his kingdom that was his 
heart’s desire. He married the Princess, 
and there was feasting and merrymaking 
for seventy days and seventy nights, and 
they all lived happily ever after. 

When the feasting was over, and the 


M 




& 


40 


®ljc ffitant Scissors 




& 

guests had all gone to their homes, the 
Prince pulled down the house of the Ogre 
and built a new one. On every gable he 
fastened a pair of shining scissors to re- 
mind himself that only through unselfish 
service to others comes the happiness 
that is highest and best. 

Over the great entrance gate he hung 
the ones that had served him so valiantly, 
saying, “ Only those who belong to the 
kingdom of loving hearts and happy 
homes can ever enter here.” 

One day the old King, with the broth- 
ers of Ethelried (the three that were dark 
and the three that were fair), came rid- 
ing up to the portal. They thought to 
share in Ethelried’s fame and splendour. 
But the scissors leaped from their place 
and snapped so angrily in their faces that 
they turned their horses and fled. 

Then the scissors sprang back to their 
place again to guard the portal of Ethel- 
41 


^ Wi )t (Ktant Scissors ^ 

ried, and, to this day, only those who 
belong to the kingdom of loving hearts 
may enter the Gate of the Giant Scis- 
sors. 


42 


3Hie (Slant Scissors 


** 




0 


CHAPTER III 

BEHIND THE GREAT GATE 


HAT was the tale of the 
giant scissors as it was 
told to Joyce in the pleas- 
ant fire-lighted room; but 
behind the great gates the 
true story went on in a 
far different way. 

Back of the Ciseaux house was a dreary 
field, growing drearier and browner every 
moment as the twilight deepened; and 
across its rough furrows a tired boy was 
stumbling wearily homeward. He was 
not more than nine years old, but the 
careworn expression of his thin white 
43 




c (Stattt Scissors 


face might have belonged to a little old 
man of ninety. He was driving two un- 
ruly goats toward the house. The chase 
they led him would have been a laugh- 
able sight, had he not looked so small 
and forlorn plodding along in his clumsy 
wooden shoes, and a peasant’s blouse of 
blue cotton, several sizes too large for 
his thin little body. 

The anxious look in his eyes changed 
to one of fear as he drew nearer the 
house. At the sound of a gruff voice 
bellowing at him from the end of the 
lane, he winced as if he had been 
struck. 

“ Ha, there, Jules! Thou lazy vaga- 
bond! Late again! Canst thou never 
learn that I am not to be kept wait- 
ing? ” 

“ But, Brossard,” quavered the boy in 
his shrill, anxious voice, “ it was not my 
fault, indeed it was not. The goats were 
44 


& 


®ije ffiiant Scissors 




& 

so stubborn to-night. They broke 
through the hedge, and I had to chase 
them over three fields.” 

“ Have done with thy lying excuses,” 
was the rough answer. “ Thou shalt 
have no supper to-night. Maybe an 
empty stomach will teach thee when my 
commands fail. Hasten and drive the 
goats into the pen.” 

There was a scowl on Brossard’s burly 
red face that made Jules’s heart bump 
up in his throat. Brossard was only the 
caretaker of the Ciseaux place, but he had 
been there for twenty years, — so long 
that he felt himself the master. The real 
master was in Algiers nearly all the time. 
During his absence the great house was 
closed, excepting the kitchen and two 
rooms above it. Of these Brossard had 
one and Henri the other. Henri was the 
cook; a slow, stupid old man, not to be 
jogged out of either his good nature or 
45 




&iant Scissors ^ 


his slow gait by anything that Brossard 
might say. 

Henri cooked and washed and mended, 
and hoed in the garden. Brossard worked 
in the fields and shaved down the ex- 
penses of their living closer and closer. 
All that was thus saved fell to his share, 
or he might not have watched the ex- 
penses so carefully. 

Much saving had made him miserly. 
Old Therese, the woman with the fish- 
cart, used to say that he was the stingiest 
man in all Touraine. She ought to know, 
for she had sold him a fish every Friday 
during all those twenty years, and he had 
never once failed to quarrel about the 
price. Five years had gone by since 
the master’s last visit. Brossard and 


Henri were not likely to forget that time, 



for they had been awakened in the dead 
of night by a loud knocking at the side 
gate. When they opened it the sight that 
46 


^ gEfte (Slant Sciggorg ^ 

greeted them made them rub their sleepy 
eyes to be sure that they saw aright. 

There stood the master, old Martin 
Ciseaux. His hair and fiercely bristling 
moustache had turned entirely white 
since they had last seen him. In his 
arms he carried a child. 

Brossard almost dropped his candle in 
his first surprise, and his wonder grew 
until he could hardly contain it, when the 
curly head raised itself from monsieur’s 
shoulder, and the sleepy baby voice lisped 
something in a foreign tongue. 

“ By all the saints ! ” muttered Bros- 
sard, as he stood aside for his master to 
pass. 

“ It’s my brother Jules’s grandson,” 
was the curt explanation that monsieur 
offered. “ Jules is dead, and so is his son 
and all the family, — died in America. 
This is his son’s son, Jules, the last of 
the name. If I choose to take him 
47 




&tant Scissors 




a foreign poorhouse and give him shel- 
ter, it’s nobody’s business, Louis Bros- 
sard, but my own.” 

With that he strode on up the stairs 
to his room, the boy still in his arms. 
This sudden coming of a four-year-old 
child into their daily life made as little 
difference to Brossard and Henri as the 
presence of the four-months-old puppy. 
They spread a cot for him in Henri’s 
room when the master went back to 
Algiers. They gave him something to 
eat three times a day when they stopped 
for their own meals, and then went on 
with their work as usual. 

It made no difference to them that he 
sobbed in the dark for his mother to come 
and sing him to sleep, — the happy young 
mother who had petted and humoured 
him in her own fond American fashion. 
They could not understand his speech; 
more than that, they could not under- 
48 


0 


^ Wl ) t GSdmt &tmoxz^ 


stand him. Why should he mope alone 
in the garden with that beseeching look 
of a lost dog in his big, mournful eyes? 
Why should he not play and be happy, 
like the neighbour’s children or the kit- 
tens or any other young thing that had 
life and sunshine? 

Brossard snapped his fingers at him 
sometimes at first, as he would have done 
to a playful animal; but when Jules drew 
back, frightened by his foreign speech 
and rough voice, he began to dislike the 
timid child. After awhile he never no- 
ticed him except to push him aside or 
to find fault. 

It was from Henri that Jules picked up 
whatever French he learned, and it was 
from Henri also that he had received the 
one awkward caress, and the only one, 
that his desolate little heart had known 
in all the five loveless years that he had 
been with them. 


49 


)£ ffiiant Scissors 


A few months ago Brossard had put 
him out in the field to keep the goats from 
straying away from their pasture, two 
stubborn creatures, whose self-willed 
wanderings had brought many a scold- 
ing down on poor Jules’s head. To-night 
he was unusually unfortunate, for added 
to the weary chase they had led him was 
this stern command that he should go to 
bed without his supper. 

He was about to pass into the house, 
shivering and hungry, when Henri put 
his head out at the window. “ Brossard,” 
he called, “ there isn’t enough bread for 
supper; there’s just this dry end of a 
loaf. You should have bought as I told 
you, when the baker’s cart stopped here 
this morning.” 

Brossard slowly measured the bit of 
hard, black bread with his eye, and, see- 
ing that there was not half enough to 
satisfy the appetites of two hungry men, 
50 




^ Wl ) t gRiant &riggors ^ 

he grudgingly drew a franc from his 
pocket. 

“ Here, Jules,” he called. “ Go down to 
the bakery, and see to it that thou art 
back by the time that I have milked the 
goats, or thou shalt go to bed with a 
beating, as well as supperless. Stay ! ” 
he added, as Jules turned to go. “ I have 
a mind to eat white bread to-night in- 
stead of black. It will cost an extra sou, 
so be careful to count the change. It is 
only once or so in a twelvemonth,” he 
muttered to himself as an excuse for his 
extravagance. 

It was half a mile to the village, but 
down-hill all the way, so that Jules 
reached the bakery in a very short 
time. 

Several customers were ahead of him, 
however, and he awaited his turn nerv- 
ously. When he left the shop an old 
lamplighter was going down the street 
5i 


^ dSdmt Sriggorg ^ 


with torch and ladder, leaving a double 
line of twinkling lights in his wake, as 
he disappeared down the wide “ Paris 
road.” Jules watched him a moment, and 
then ran rapidly on. For many centuries 
the old village of St. Symphorien had 
echoed with the clatter of wooden shoes 
on its ancient cobblestones; but never 
had footfalls in its narrow, crooked 
streets kept time to the beating of a lone- 
lier little heart. 

The officer of Customs, at his window 
beside the gate that shuts in the old town 
at night, nodded in a surly way as the 
boy hurried past. Once outside the gate, 
Jules walked more slowly, for the road 
began to wind up-hill. Now he was out 
again in the open country, where a faint 
light lying over the frosty fields showed 
that the moon was rising. 

Here and there lamps shone from the 
windows of houses along the road ; across 
52 


STije (Ktant Scissors 




& 


the field came the bark of a dog, welcom- 
ing his master; two old peasant women 
passed him in a creaking cart on their 
glad way home. 

At the top of the hill Jules stopped to 
take breath, leaning for a moment against 
the stone wall. He was faint from hun- 
ger, for he had been in the fields since 
early morning, with nothing for his mid- 
day lunch but a handful of boiled chest- 
nuts. The smell of the fresh bread tan- 
talized him beyond endurance. Oh, to 
be able to take a mouthful, — just one 
little mouthful of that brown, sweet 
crust ! 

He put his face down close, and shut 
his eyes, drawing in the delicious odour 
with long, deep breaths. What bliss it 
would be to have that whole loaf for his 
own, — he, little Jules, who was to have 
no supper that night! He held it up in 
the moonlight, hungrily looking at it on 
53 


SCI )t ffiiant Scissors 


every side. There was not a broken place 
to be found anywhere on its surface; not 
one crack in all that hard, brown glaze 
of crust, from which he might pinch the 
tiniest crumb. 

For a moment a mad impulse seized 
him to tear it in pieces, and eat every 
scrap, regardless of the reckoning with 
Brossard afterward. But it was only for 
a moment. The memory of his last beat- 
ing stayed his hand. Then, fearing to 
dally with temptation, lest it should mas- 
ter him, he thrust the bread under his 
arm, and ran every remaining step of the 
way home. 

Brossard took the loaf from him, and 
pointed with it to the stairway, — a mute 
command for Jules to go to bed at once. 
Tingling with a sense of injustice, the 
little fellow wanted to shriek out in all 
his hunger and misery, defying this mon- 
ster of a man; but a struggling sparrow 
54 


& 


gflje (Slant Scissors 




& 


might as well have tried to turn on the 
hawk that held it. He clenched his hands 
to keep from snatching something from 
the table, set out so temptingly in the 
kitchen, but he dared not linger even to 
look at it. With a feeling of utter help- 
lessness he passed it in silence, his face 
white and set. 

Dragging his tired feet slowly up the 
stairs, he went over to the casement win- 
dow, and swung it open; then, kneeling 
down, he laid his head on the sill, in the 
moonlight. Was it his dream that came 
back to him then, or only a memory? 
He could never be sure, for if it were a 
memory, it was certainly as strange as 
any dream, unlike anything he had ever 
known in his life with Henri and Bros- 
sard. Night after night he had com- 
forted himself with the picture that it 
brought before him. 

He could see a little white house in the 


55 


®fje ffitant Scissors 




& 


middle of a big lawn. There were vines 
on the porches, and it must have been 
early in the evening, for the fireflies were 
beginning to twinkle over the lawn. And 
the grass had just been cut, for the air 
was sweet with the smell of it. A 
woman, standing on the steps under the 
vines, was calling “ Jules, Jules, it is time 
to come in, little son ! ” 

But Jules, in his white dress and shoul- 
der-knots of blue ribbon, was toddling 
across the lawn after a firefly. 

Then she began to call him another 
way. Jules had a vague idea that it was 
a part of some game that they sometimes 
played together. It sounded like a song, 
and the words were not like any that he 
had ever heard since he came to live with 
Henri and Brossard. He could not for- 
get them, though, for had they not sung 
themselves through that beautiful dream 
every time he had it? 

56 


^ fclje (Kiant Scissors ^ 


“ Little Boy Blue, oh, where are you? 

Oh, where are you-u-u-u?” 

He only laughed in the dream picture 
and ran on after the firefly. Then a man 
came running after him, and, catching 
him, tossed him up laughingly, and car- 
ried him to the house on his shoulder. 

Somebody held a glass of cool, creamy 
milk for him to drink, and by and by he 
was in a little white nightgown in the 
woman’s lap. His head was nestled 
against her shoulder, and he could feel 
her soft lips touching him on cheeks and 
eyelids and mouth, before she began to 
sing: 

“ Oh, little Boy Blue, lay by your horn,. 

And mother will sing of the cows and the corn, 
Till the stars and the angels come to keep 
Their watch, where my baby lies fast asleep.” 

Now all of a sudden Jules knew that 
there was another kind of hunger worse 
than the longing for bread. He wanted 
57 


^ Wjt ffiiant Scissors ^ 


the soft touch of those lips again on his 
mouth and eyelids, the loving pressure 
of those restful arms, a thousand times 
more than he had wished for the loaf that 
he had just brought home. Two hot 
tears, that made his eyes ache in their 
slow gathering, splashed down on the 
window-sill. 

Down below Henri opened the kitchen 
door and snapped his fingers to call the 
dog. Looking out, Jules saw him set a 
plate of bones on the step. For a moment 
he listened .to the animal’s contented 
crunching, and then crept across the room 
to his cot, with a little moan. “ O-o-oh 
— o-oh ! ” he sobbed. “ Even the dog has 
more than I have, and I’m so hungry!” 
He hid his head awhile in the old quilt; 
then he raised it again, and, with the 
tears streaming down his thin little 
face, sobbed in a heart - broken whis- 
per: 


58 


E\ )t ffiiant Scissors 




& 


“Mother! Mother! Do you know how 
hungry I am? ” 

A clatter of knives and forks from the 
kitchen below was the only answer, and 
he dropped despairingly down again. 

“ She’s so far away she can’t even hear 
me ! ” he moaned. “ Oh, if I could only 
be dead, too ! ” 

He lay there, crying, till Henri had 
finished washing the supper dishes and 
had put them clumsily away. The rank 
odour of tobacco, stealing up the stairs, 
told him that Brossard had settled down 
to enjoy his evening pipe. Through the 
casement window that was still ajar came 
the faint notes of an accordeon from 
Monsieur Greville’s garden, across the 
way. Gabriel, the coachman, was walk- 
ing up and down in the moonlight, play- 
ing a wheezy accompaniment to the only 
song he knew. Jules did not notice it at 
first, but after awhile, when he had cried 
59 



SCije (Giant Scissors 


himself quiet, the faint melody began to 
steal soothingly into his consciousness. 
His eyelids closed drowsily, and then the 
accordeon seemed to be singing some- 
thing to him. He could not understand 
at first, but just as he was dropping off 
to sleep he heard it quite clearly: 

“ Till the stars and the angels come to keep 
Their watch, where my baby lies fast asleep.” 

Late in the night Jules awoke with a 
start, and sat up, wondering what had 
aroused him. He knew that it must be 
after midnight, for the moon was nearly 
down. Henri was snoring. Suddenly 
such a strong feeling of hunger came 
over him, that he could think of nothing 
else. It was like a gnawing pain. As if 
he were being led by some power outside 
of his own will, he slipped to the door 
of the room. The little bare feet made 
no noise on the carpetless floor. No 
60 


& 


^ <&imt Scissors ^ 


mouse could have stolen down the stairs 
more silently than timid little Jules. The 
latch of the kitchen door gave a loud 
click that made him draw back with a 
shiver of alarm; but that was all. After 
waiting one breathless minute, his heart 
beating like a trip-hammer, he went on 
into the pantry. 

The moon was so far down now, that 
only a white glimmer of light showed 
him the faint outline of things; but his 
keen little nose guided him. There was 
half a cheese on the swinging shelf, with 
all the bread that had been left from sup- 
per. He broke off great pieces of each 
in eager haste. Then he found a crock 
of goat’s milk. Lifting it to his mouth, 
he drank with big, quick gulps until he 
had to stop for breath. Just as he was 
about to raise it to his lips again, some 
instinct of danger made him look up. 
There in the doorway stood Brossard, 
61 


®Jjc ffiiant Scissors 




bigger and darker and more threatening 
than he had ever seemed before. 

A frightened little gasp was all that 
the child had strength to give. He turned 
so sick and faint that his nerveless fingers 
could no longer hold the crock. It fell 
to the floor with a crash, and the milk 
spattered all over the pantry. Jules was 
too terrified to utter a sound. It was 
Brossard who made the outcry. Jules 
could only shut his eyes and crouch down 
trembling, under the shelf. The next 
instant he was dragged out, and Bros- 
sard’s merciless strap fell again and again 
on the poor shrinking little body, that 
writhed under the cruel blows. 

Once more Jules dragged himself up- 
stairs to his cot, this time bruised and 
sore, too exhausted for tears, too hopeless 
to think of possible to-morrows. 

Poor little prince in the clutches of the 
ogre! If only fairy-tales might be true! 

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If only some gracious spirit of elfin lore 
might really come at such a time with 
its magic wand of healing! Then there 
would be no more little desolate hearts, 
no more grieved little faces with undried 
tears upon them in all the earth. Over 
every threshold where a child’s wee feet 
had pattered in and found a home, it 
would hang its guardian Scissors of 
Avenging, so that only those who belong 
to the kingdom of loving hearts and gen- 
tle hands would ever dare to enter. 


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0 


CHAPTER IV 

A LETTER AND A MEETING 

EARLY a week later Joyce 
sat at her desk, hurrying 
to finish a letter before 
the postman’s arrival. 

“ Dear Jack,” it began. 

“ You and Mary will each get a letter 
this week. Hers is the fairy-tale that 
Cousin Kate told me, about an old gate 
near here. I wrote it down as well as 
I could remember. I wish you could 
see that gate. It gets more interest- 
ing every day, and I’d give most any- 
thing to see what lies on the other side. 
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Maybe I shall soon, for Marie has a way 
of finding out anything she wants to 
know. Marie is my new maid. Cousin 
Kate went to Paris last week, to be gone 
until nearly Christmas, so she got Marie 
to take care of me. 

“ It seems so odd to have somebody 
button my boots and brush my hair, and 
take me out to walk as if I were a big 
doll. I have to be very dignified and act 
as if I had always been used to such 
things. I believe Marie would be shocked 
to death if she knew that I had ever 
washed dishes, or pulled weeds out of the 
pavement, or romped with you in the 
barn. 

“ Yesterday when we were out walking 
I got so tired of acting as if I were a 
hundred years old, that I felt as if I 
should scream. ‘ Marie,’ I said, ‘ I’ve a 
mind to throw my muff in the fence- 
corner and run and hang on behind that 
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wagon that’s going down-hill.’ She had 
no idea that I was in earnest. She just 
smiled very politely and said, ‘ Oh, made- 
moiselle, impossible! How you Ameri- 
cans do love to jest.’ But it was no joke. 
You can’t imagine how stupid it is to be 
with nobody but grown people all the 
time. I’m fairly aching for a good old 
game of hi spy or prisoner’s base with 
you. There is nothing at all to do, but 
to take poky walks. 

“ Yesterday afternoon we walked down 
to the river. There’s a double row of 
trees along it on this side, and several 
benches where people can wait for the 
tram-cars that pass down this street and 
then across the bridge into Tours. Marie 
found an old friend of hers sitting on one 
of the benches, — such a big fat woman, 
and, oh, such a gossip! Marie said she 
was tired, so we sat there a long time. 
Her friend’s name is Clotilde Robard. 

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*0 


They talked about everybody in St. Sym- 
phorien. 

“ Then I gossiped, too. I asked Clo- 
tilde Robard if she knew why the gate 
with the big scissors was never opened 
any more. She told me that she used to 
be one of the maids there, before she mar- 
ried the spice-monger and was Madame 
Robard. Years before she went to live 
there, when the old Monsieur Ciseaux 
died, there was a dreadful quarrel about 
some money. The son that got the prop- 
erty told his brother and sister never to 
darken his doors again. 

“ They went off to America, and that 
big front gate has never been opened 
since they passed out of it. Clotilde says 
that some people say that they put a 
curse on it, and something awful will 
happen to the first one who dares to go 
through. Isn’t that interesting? 

“ The oldest son, Mr. Martin Ciseaux, 
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kept up the place for a long time, just as 
his father had done, but he never married. 
All of a sudden he shut up the house, sent 
away all the servants but the two who 
take care of it, and went off to Algiers 
to live. Five years ago he came back 
to bring his little grandnephew, but no- 
body has seen him since that time. 

“ Clotilde says that an orphan asylum 
would have been a far better home for 
Jules (that is the boy’s name), for Bros- 
sard, the caretaker, is so mean to him. 
Doesn’t that make you think of Prince 
Ethelried in the fairy-tale? ‘ Little and 
lorn; no fireside welcomed him and no 
lips gave him a friendly greeting.’ 

“ Marie says that she has often seen 
Jules down in the field, back of his uncle’s 
house, tending the goats. I hope that I 
may see him sometime. 

“ Oh, dear, the postman has come 
sooner than I expected. He is talking 


Wqz (Slant Scissors 




& 

down in the hall now, and if I do not post 
this letter now it will miss the evening 
train and be too late for the next mail 
steamer. Tell mamma that I will an- 
swer all her questions about my lessons 
and clothes next week. Oceans of love 
to everybody in the dear little brown 
house.” 


Hastily scrawling her name, Joyce ran 
out into the hall with her letter. “ Any- 
thing for me? ” she asked, anxiously, 
leaning over the banister to drop the let- 
ter into Marie’s hand. “ One, mademoi- 
selle,” was the answer. “ But it has not 
a foreign stamp.” 

“Oh, from Cousin Kate!” exclaimed 
Joyce, tearing it open as she went back 
to her room. At the door she stooped 
to pick up a piece of paper that had 
dropped from the envelope. It crackled 
stiffly as she unfolded it. 

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“ Money ! ” she exclaimed in surprise. 

“ A whole twenty-franc note. What 
could Cousin Kate have sent it for? ” 

The last page of the letter explained. 

“ I have just remembered that Decem- 
ber is not very far off, and that whatever 
little Christmas gifts we send home 
should soon be started on their way. 
Enclosed you will find twenty francs for 
your Christmas shopping. It is not 
much, but we are too far away to send 
anything but the simplest little remem- 
brances, things that will not be spoiled 
in the mail, and on which little or no duty 
need be paid. You might buy one article 
each day, so that there will be some pur- 
pose in your walks into Tours. 

“ I am sorry that I cannot be with you 
on Thanksgiving Day. We will have to 
drop it from our calendar this year; not 
the thanksgiving itself, but the turkey 
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and mince pie part. Suppose you take 
a few francs to give yourself some little 
treat to mark the day. I hope my dear 
little girl will not be homesick all by her- 
self. I never should have left just at 
this time if it had not been very neces- 
sary.” 

Joyce smoothed out the bank-note and 
looked at it with sparkling eyes. Twenty 
whole francs! The same as four dollars! 
All the money that she had ever had in 
her whole life put together would not 
have amounted to that much. Dimes 
were scarce in the little brown house, 
and even pennies seldom found their way 
into the children’s hands when five pairs 
of little feet were always needing shoes, 
and five healthy appetites must be sat- 
isfied daily. 

All the time that Joyce was pinning her 
treasure securely in her pocket and put- 
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ting on her hat and jacket, all the time 
that she was walking demurely down the 
road with Marie, she was planning dif- 
ferent ways in which to spend her for- 
tune. 

“ Mademoiselle is very quiet/’ ven- 
tured Marie, remembering that one of 
her duties was to keep up an improv- 
ing conversation with her little mistress. 

“ Yes,” answered Joyce, half-impa- 
tiently; “I’ve got something so lovely 
to think about, that I’d like to go back 
and sit down in the garden and just think 
and think until dark, without being in- 
terrupted by anybody.” 

This was Marie’s opportunity. “ Then 
mademoiselle might not object to stop- 
ping in the garden of the villa which we 
are now approaching,” she said. “ My 
friend, Clotilde Robard, is housekeeper 
there, and I have a very important mes- 
sage to deliver to her.” 

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; ^ 


& 

Joyce had no objection. “ But, Marie,” 
she said, as she paused at the gate, “ I 
think I’ll not go in. It is so lovely and 
warm out here in the sun that I’ll just 
sit here on the steps and wait for you.” 

Five minutes went by and then ten. 
By that time Joyce had decided how to 
spend every centime in the whole twenty 
francs, and Marie had not returned. An- 
other five minutes went by. It was dull, 
sitting there facing the lonely highway, 
down which no one ever seemed to pass. 
Joyce stood up, looked all around, and 
then slowly sauntered down the road a 
short distance. 

Here and there in the crevices of the 
wall blossomed a few hardy wild flowers, 
which Joyce began to gather as she 
walked. “ I’ll go around this bend in the 
road and see what’s there,” she said to 
herself. “ By that time Marie will surely 
be done with her messages.” 

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& 


No one was in sight in any direction, 
and feeling that no one could be in hear- 
ing distance, either, in such a deserted 
place, she began to sing. It was an old 
Mother Goose rhyme that she hummed 
over and over, in a low voice at first, but 
louder as she walked on. 

Around the bend in the road there was 
nothing to be seen but a lonely field 
where two goats were grazing. On one 
side of it was a stone wall, on two others 
a tall hedge, but the side next her sloped 
down to the road, unfenced. 

Joyce, with her hands filled with the 
yellow wild flowers, stood looking around 
her, singing the old rhyme, the song that 
she had taught the baby to sing before 
he could talk plainly: 



jjgj “ Little Boy Blue, come blow your horn, 

The sheep’s in the meadow, the cow’s in the corn. 


wif 1 Little Boy Blue, oh, where are you? 
T/?Ph, where are you-u-u-u?” 


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& 


The gay little voice that had been ris- 
ing higher and higher, sweet as any 
bird’s, stopped suddenly in mid-air; for, 
as if in answer to her call, there was a 
rustling just ahead of her, and a boy who 
had been lying on his back, looking at 
the sky, slowly raised himself out of the 
grass. 

For an instant Joyce was startled; 
then seeing by his wooden shoes and old 
blue cotton blouse that he was only a 
little peasant watching the goats, she 
smiled at him with a pleasant good morn- 
ing. 

He did not answer, but came toward 
her with a dazed expression on his face, 
as if he were groping his way through 
some strange dream. “ It is time to go 
in ! ” he exclaimed, as if repeating some 
lesson learned long ago, and half-for- 
gotten. 

Joyce stared at him in open-mouthed 
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astonishment. The little fellow had 
spoken in English. “ Oh, you must be 
Jules,” she cried. “ Aren’t you? IVe 
been wanting to find you for ever so 
long.” 

The boy seemed frightened, and did 
not answer, only looked at her with big, 
troubled eyes. Thinking that she had 
made a mistake, that she had not heard 
aright, Joyce spoke in French. He an- 
swered her timidly. She had not been 
mistaken; he was Jules; he had been 
asleep, he told her, and when he heard 
her singing, he thought it was his mother 
calling him as she used to do, and had 
started up expecting to see her at last. 
Where was she? Did mademoiselle know 
her? Surely she must if she knew the 
song. 

It was on the tip of Joyce’s tongue to 
tell him that everybody knew that song; 
that it was as familiar to the children at 
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home as the chirping of crickets on the 
hearth or the sight of dandelions in the 
spring-time. But some instinct warned 
her not to say it. She was glad after- 
ward, when she found that it was sacred 
to him, woven in as it was with his one 
beautiful memory of a home. It was all 
he had, and the few words that Joyce's 
singing had startled from him were all 
that he remembered of his mother’s 
speech. 

If Joyce had happened upon him in any 
other way, it is doubtful if their acquaint- 
ance would have grown very rapidly. 
He was afraid of strangers; but coming 
as she did with the familiar song that 
was like an old friend, he felt that he 
must have known her sometime, — that 
other time when there was always a 
sweet voice calling, and fireflies twinkled 
across a dusky lawn. 

Joyce was not in a hurry for Marie to 
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come now. She had a hundred questions 
to ask, and made the most of her time 
by talking very fast. “ Marie will be 
frightened/’ she told Jules, “ if she does 
not find me at the gate, and will think 
that the gipsies have stolen me. Then 
she will begin to hunt up and down the 
road, and I don’t know what she would 
say if she came and found me talking 
to a strange child out in the fields, so I 
must hurry back. I am glad that I found 
you. I have been wishing so long for 
somebody to play with, and you seem 
like an old friend because you were born 
in America. I’m going to ask madame 
to ask Brossard to let you come over 
sometime.” 

Jules watched her as she hurried away, 
running lightly down the road, her fair 
hair flying over her shoulders and her 
short blue skirt fluttering. Once she 
looked back to wave her hand. Long 
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after she was out of sight he still stood 
looking after her, as one might gaze long- 
ingly after some visitant from another 
world. Nothing like her had ever 
dropped into his life before, and he won- 
dered if he should ever see her again. 


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& 


CHAPTER V 

A THANKSGIVING BARBECUE 

HIS doesn’t seem a bit 
like Thanksgiving Day, 
Marie,” said Joyce, plain- 
tively, as she sat up in 
bed to take the early 
breakfast that her maid 
brought in, — a cup of chocolate and a 
roll. 

“ In our country the very minute you 
wake up you can feel that it is a holiday. 
Outdoors it’s nearly always cold and gray, 
with everything covered with snow. In- 
side you can smell turkey and pies and 
all sorts of good spicy things. Here it 
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ffiiant Scissors 






is so warm that the windows are open 
and flowers blooming in the garden, and 
there isn’t a thing to make it seem dif- 
ferent from any other old day.” 

Here her grumbling was interrupted 
by a knock at the door, and Madame Gre- 
ville’s maid, Berthe, came in with a mes- 
sage. 

“ Madame and monsieur intend spend- 
ing the day in Tours, and since Mademoi- 
selle Ware has written that Mademoiselle 
Joyce is to have no lessons on this Amer- 
ican holiday, they will be pleased to have 
her accompany them in the carriage. She 
can spend the morning with them there 
or return immediately with Gabriel.” 

“ Of course I want to go,” cried Joyce. 
“ I love to drive. But I’d rather come 
back here to lunch and have it by myself 
in the garden. Berthe, ask madame if I 
can’t have it served in the little kiosk at 
the end of the arbour.” 

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As soon as she had received a most 
gracious permission, Joyce began to make 
a little plan. It troubled her conscience 
somewhat, for she felt that she ought to 
mention it to madame, but she was al- 
most certain that madame would object, 
and she had set her heart on carrying it 
out. 

“ I won’t speak about it now,” she said 
to herself, “ because I am not sure that I 
am going to do it. Mamma would think 
it was all right, but foreigners are so 
queer about some things.” 

Uncertain as Joyce may have been 
about her future actions, as they drove 
toward town, no sooner had madame and 
monsieur stepped from the carriage, on 
the Rue Nationale, than she was per- 
fectly sure. 

“ Stop at the baker’s, Gabriel,” she or- 
dered as they turned homeward, then at 
the big grocery on the corner. “ Cousin 
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& 

Kate told me to treat myself to some- 
thing nice,” she said apologetically to 
her conscience, as she gave up the twenty 
francs to the clerk to be changed. 

If Gabriel wondered what was in the 
little parcels which she brought back to 
the carriage, he made no sign. He only 
touched his hat respectfully, as she gave 
the next order : “ Stop where the road 
turns by the cemetery, Gabriel; at the 
house with the steps going up to an iron- 
barred gate. I’ll be back in two or three 
minutes,” she said, when she had reached 
it, and climbed from the carriage. 

To his surprise, instead of entering the 
gate, she hurried on past it, around the 
bend in the road. In a little while she 
came running back, her shoes covered 
with damp earth, as if she had been walk- 
ing in a freshly ploughed field. 

If Gabrieli eyes could have followed 
her around that bend in the road, he 
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would have seen a sight past his under- 
standing: Mademoiselle Joyce running 
at the top of her speed to meet a little 
goatherd in wooden shoes and blue cot- 
ton blouse, — a common little peasant 
goatherd. 

“ It’s Thanksgiving Day, Jules,” she 
announced, gasping, as she sank down 
on the ground beside him. “ We’re the 
only Americans here, and everybody has 
gone off; and Cousin Kate said to cele- 
brate in some way. I’m going to have 
a dinner in the garden. I’ve bought a 
rabbit, and we’ll dig a hole, and make 
a fire, and barbecue it the way Jack and 
I used to do at home. And we’ll roast 
eggs in the ashes, and have a fine time. 
I’ve got a lemon tart and a little iced 
fruit-cake, too.” 

All this was poured out in such breath- 
less haste, and in such a confusion of 
tongues, first a sentence of English and 
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& 


then a word of French, that it is no won- 
der that Jules grew bewildered in trying 
to follow her. She had to begin again 
at the beginning, and speak very slowly, 
in order to make him understand that it 
was a feast-day of some kind, and that 
he, Jules, was invited to some sort of a 
strange, wonderful entertainment in Mon- 
sieur Greville’s garden. “ But Brossard 
is away from home,” said Jules, “ and 
there is no one to watch the goats, and 
keep them from straying down the road. 
Still it would be just the same if he were 
home,” he added, sadly. “ He would not 
let me go, I am sure. I have never been 
out of sight of that roof since I first came 
here, except on errands to the village, 
when I had to run all the way back.” He 
pointed to the peaked gables adorned by 
the scissors of his crazy old ancestor. 

“ Brossard isn’t your father,” cried 
Joyce, indignantly, “ nor your uncle, 

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your cousin, nor anything else that has 
a right to shut you up that way. Isn’t 
there a field with a fence all around it, 
that you could drive the goats into for 
a few hours?” 

Jules shook his head. 

“ Well, I can’t have my Thanksgiving 
spoiled for just a couple of old goats,” 
exclaimed Joyce. “You’ll have to bring 
them along, and we’ll shut them up in the 
carriage-house. You come over in about 
an hour, and I’ll be at the side gate wait- 
ing for you.” 

Joyce had always been a general in her 
small way. She made her plans and is- 
sued her orders both at home and at 
school, and the children accepted her 
leadership as a matter of course. Even 
if Jules had not been willing and anxious 
to go, it is doubtful if he could have mus- 
tered courage to oppose the arrangements 
that she made in such a masterful way; 

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but Jules had not the slightest wish to 
object to anything whatsoever that Joyce 
might propose. 

It is safe to say that the old garden had 
never before even dreamed of such a cele- 
bration as the one that took place that 
afternoon behind its moss-coated walls. 
The time-stained statue of Eve, which 
stood on one side of the fountain, looked 
across at the weather-beaten figure of 
Adam, on the other side, in stony-eyed 
surprise. The little marble satyr in the 
middle of the fountain, which had been 
grinning ever since its endless shower- 
bath began, seemed to grin wider than 
ever, as it watched the children’s strange 
sport. 

Jules dug the little trench according to 
Joyce’s directions, and laid the iron grat- 
ing which she had borrowed from the 
cook across it, and built the fire under- 
neath. “We ought to have something 
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especially patriotic and Thanksgivingey,” 
said Joyce, standing on one foot to con- 
sider. “ Oh, now I know,” she cried, 
after a moment’s thought. “ Cousin Kate 
has a lovely big silk flag in the top of 
her trunk. I’ll run and get that, and then 
I’ll recite the 4 Landing of the Pilgrims ’ 
to you while the rabbit cooks.” 

Presently a savoury odour began to 
steal along the winding paths of the gar- 
den, between the laurel-bushes, — a smell 
of barbecued meat sputtering over the 
fire. Above the door of the little kiosk, 
with many a soft swish of silken stir- 
rings, hung the beautiful old flag. Then 
a clear little voice floated up through the 
pine-trees : 

“ My country, ’tis of thee, 

Sweet land of liberty, 

Of thee I sing!” 

All the time that Joyce sang, she was 
moving around the table, setting out the 
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plates and rattling cups and saucers. She 
could not keep a little quaver out of her 
voice, for, as she went on, all the scenes 
of all the times that she had sung that 
song before came crowding up in her 
memory. There were the Thanksgiving 
days in the church at home, and the 
Washington’s birthdays at school, and 
two Decoration days, when, as a grand- 
daughter of a veteran, she had helped 
scatter flowers over the soldiers’ graves. 

Somehow it made her feel so hopelessly 
far away from all that made life dear 
to be singing of that “ sweet land of 
liberty ” in a foreign country, with 
only poor little alien Jules for com- 
pany. 

Maybe that is why the boy’s first les- 
son in patriotism was given so earnestly 
by his homesick little teacher. Some- 
thing that could not be put into words 
stirred within him, as, looking up at the 
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soft silken flutterings of the old flag, he 
listened for the first time to the story of 
the Pilgrim Fathers. 

The rabbit cooked slowly, so slowly 
that there was time for Jules to learn 
how to play mumble-peg while they 
waited. At last it was done, and Joyce 
proudly plumped it into the platter that 
had been waiting for it. Marie had al- 
ready brought out a bountiful lunch, cold 
meats and salad and a dainty pudding. 
By the time that Joyce had added her 
contribution to the feast, there was 
scarcely an inch of the table left uncov- 
ered. Jules did not know the names of 
half the dishes. 

Not many miles away from that old 
garden, scattered up and down the Loire 
throughout all the region of fair Tou- 
raine, rise the turrets of many an old 
chateau. Great banquet - halls, where 
and queens once feasted, still stand 

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as silent witnesses of a gay bygone court 
life; but never in any chateau or palace 
among them all was feast more thor- 
oughly enjoyed than this impromptu din- 
ner in the garden, where a little goatherd 
was the only guest. 

It was an enchanted spot to Jules, made 
so by the magic of Joyce’s wonderful gift 
of story-telling. For the first time in his 
life that he could remember, he heard of 
Santa Claus and Christmas trees, of Blue- 
beard and Aladdin’s lamp, and all the 
dear old fairy-tales that were so entranc- 
ing he almost forgot to eat. 

Then they played that he was the 
prince, Prince Ethelried, and that the 
goats in the carriage-house were his royal 
steeds, and that Joyce was a queen whom 
he had come to visit. 

But it came to an end, as all beautiful 
things must do. The bells in the village 
rang four, and Prince Ethelried started 
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up as Cinderella must have done when the 
pumpkin coach disappeared. He was no 
longer a king’s son; he was only Jules, 
the little goatherd, who must hurry back 
to the field before the coming of Bros- 
sard. 

Joyce went with him to the carriage- 
house. Together they swung open the 
great door. Then an exclamation of dis- 
may fell from Joyce’s lips. All over the 
floor were scattered scraps of leather and 
cloth and hair, the kind used in upholster- 
ing. The goats had whiled away the 
hours of their imprisonment by chewing 
up the cushions of the pony-cart. 

Jules turned pale with fright. Know- 
ing so little of the world, he judged all 
grown people by his knowledge of Henri 
and Brossard. “ Oh, what will they do 
to us?” he gasped. 

“ Nothing at all,” answered Joyce, 
bravely, although her heart beat twice as 
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fast as usual as monsieur’s accusing face 
rose up before her. 

“ It was all my fault,” said Jules, ready 
to cry. “ What must I do? ” Joyce saw 
his distress, and with quick womanly tact 
recognized her duty as hostess. It would 
never do to let this, his first Thanksgiv- 
ing Day, be clouded by a single unhappy 
remembrance. She would pretend that 
it was a part of their last game; so she 
waved her hand, and said, in a theatrical 
voice, “ You forget, Prince Ethelried, that 
in the castle of Irmingarde she rules 
supreme. If it is the pleasure of your 
royal steeds to feed upon cushions, they 
shall not be denied, even though they 
choose my own coach pillows of gold- 
cloth and velour.” 

“ But what if Gabriel should tell Bros- 
sard? ” questioned Jules, his teeth almost 
chattering at the mere thought. 

“ Oh, never mind, Jules,” she answered, 
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laughingly. “ Don’t worry about a little 
thing like that. I’ll make it all right with 
madame as soon as she gets home.” 

Jules, with utmost faith in Joyce’s 
power to do anything that she might 
undertake, drew a long breath of relief. 

Half a dozen times between the gate and 
the lane that led into the Ciseaux field, 
he turned around to wave his old cap 
in answer to the hopeful flutter of her 
little white handkerchief; but when he 
was out of sight she went back to the 
carriage-house and looked at the wreck 
of the cushions with a sinking heart. 

After that second look, she was not so 
sure of making it all right with madame. 

Going slowly up to her room, she 
curled up in the window-seat to wait for 
the sound of the carriage wheels. The 
blue parrots on the wall-paper sat in their 
blue hoops in straight rows from floor 
to ceiling, and hung all their dismal 
94 


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heads. It seemed to Joyce as if there 
were thousands of them, and that each 
one was more unhappy than any of the 
others. The blue roses on the bed-cur- 
tains, that had been in such gay blossom 
a few hours before, looked ugly and un- 
natural now. 

Over the mantel hung a picture that 
had been a pleasure to Joyce ever since she 
had taken up her abode in this quaint blue 
room. It was called “ A Message from 
Noel,” and showed an angel flying down 
with gifts to fill a pair of little wooden 
shoes that some child had put out on a 
window-sill below. When madame had 
explained that the little French children 
put out their shoes for Saint Noel to fill, 
instead of hanging stockings for Santa 
Claus, Joyce had been so charmed with 
the picture that she declared that she in- 
tended to follow the French custom her- 
self this year. 


95 


^ gTtje (Slant .Scissors ^ 


Now, even the picture looked different, 
since she had lost her joyful anticipations 
of Christmas. “ It is all No-el to me 
now,” she sobbed. “ No tree, no Santa 
Claus, and now, since the money must 
go to pay for the goats’ mischief, no 
presents for anybody in the dear little 
brown house at home, — not even mamma 
and the baby ! ” 

A big salty tear trickled down the side 
of Joyce’s nose and splashed on her hand; 
then another one. It was such a gloomy 
ending for her happy Thanksgiving Day. 
One consoling thought came to her in 
time to stop the deluge that threatened. 
“ Anyway, Jules has had a good time for 
once in his life.” The thought cheered 
her so much that, when Marie came in 
to light the lamps, Joyce was walking up 
and down the room with her hands be- 
hind her back, singing. 

As soon as she was dressed for dinner, 
96 


2E1je ffiiant Scissors 




0 


she went down-stairs, but found no one 
in the drawing-room. A small fire burned 
cosily on the hearth, for the November 
nights were growing chilly. Joyce picked 
up a book and tried to read, but found 
herself looking toward the door fully as 
often as at the page before her. Pres- 
ently she set her teeth together and swal- 
lowed hard, for there was a rustling in 
the hall. The portiere was pushed aside 
and madame swept into the room in a 
dinner-gown of dark red velvet. 

To Joyce’s waiting eyes she seemed 
more imposing, more elegant, and more 
unapproachable than she had ever been 
before. At madame’s entrance Joyce rose 
as usual, but when the red velvet train 
had swept on to a seat beside the fire, 
she still remained standing. Her lips 
seemed glued together after those first 
words of greeting. 

“ Be seated, mademoiselle,” said the 
97 


Wje ffiiant Scissors 


lady, with a graceful motion of her hand 
toward a chair. “ How have you enjoyed 
your holiday? ” 

Joyce gave a final swallow of the chok- 
ing lump in her throat, and began her 
humble confession that she had framed 
up-stairs among the rows of dismal blue 
wall-paper parrots. She started with Clo- 
tilde Robard’s story of Jules, told of her 
accidental meeting with him, of all that 
she knew of his hard life with Brossard, 
and of her longing for some one to play 
with. Then she acknowledged that she 
had planned the barbecue secretly, fearing 
that madame would not allow her to in- 
vite the little goatherd. At the conclu- 
sion, she opened the handkerchief which 
she had been holding tightly clenched in 
her hand, and poured its contents in the 
red velvet lap. 

“ There’s all that is left of my Christ- 
mas money,” she said, sadly, “ seventeen 

98 


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francs and two sous. If it isn’t enough 
to pay for the cushions, I’ll write to 
Cousin Kate, and maybe she will lend me 
the rest.” 

Madame gathered up the handful of 
coin, and slowly rose. “ It is only a step 
to the carriage-house,” she said. “ If you 
will kindly ring for Berthe to bring a 
lamp, we will look to see how much dam- 
age has been done.” 

It was an unusual procession that filed 
down the garden walk a few minutes 
later. First came Berthe, in her black 
dress and white cap, holding a lamp high 
above her head, and screwing her fore- 
head into a mass of wrinkles as she 
peered out into the surrounding darkness. 
After her came madame, holding up her 
dress and stepping daintily along in her 
high-heeled little slippers. Joyce brought 
up the rear, stumbling along in the dark- 
ness of madame’s large shadow, so ab- 


99 


&ije (Slant Scissors 


sorbed in her troubles that she did not 
see the amused expression on the face of 
the grinning satyr in the fountain. 

Eve, looking across at Adam, seemed 
to wink one of her stony eyes, as much 
as to say, “ Humph ! Somebody else has 
been getting into trouble. There’s more 
kinds of forbidden fruit than one; pony- 
cart cushions, for instance.” 

Berthe opened the door, and madame 
stepped inside the carriage-house. With 
her skirts held high in both hands, she 
moved around among the wreck of the 
cushions, turning over a bit with the toe 
of her slipper now and then. 

Madame wore velvet dinner-gowns, it 
is true, and her house was elegant in its 
fine old furnishings bought generations 
ago; but only her dressmaker and her- 
self knew how many times those gowns 
had been ripped and cleaned and remod- 
elled. It was only constant housewifely 


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^ Efre ffiiant gctesors ^ 

skill that kept the antique furniture re- 
paired and the ancient brocade hangings 
from falling into holes. None but a 
French woman, trained in petty econo- 
mies, could have guessed how little 
money and how much thought was spent 
in keeping her table up to its high stand- 
ard of excellence. 

Now as she looked and estimated, 
counting the fingers of one hand with 
the thumb of the other, a wish stirred 
in her kind old heart that she need not 
take the child’s money; but new cushions 
must be bought, and she must be just to 
herself before she could be generous to 
others. So she went on with her esti- 
mating and counting, and then called 
Gabriel to consult with him. 

“ Much of the same hair can be used 
again,” she said, finally, “ and the cush- 
ions were partly worn, so that it would 
not be right for you to have to bear the 


IOI 




whole expense of new ones. I shall keep 
sixteen, — no, I shall keep only fifteen 
francs of your money, mademoiselle. I 
am sorry to take any of it, since you have 
been so frank with me; but you must see 
that it would not be justice for me to 
have to suffer in consequence of your 
fault. In France, children do nothing 
without the permission of their elders, 
and it would be well for you to adopt 
the same rule, my dear mademoiselle.” 

Here she dropped two francs and two 
sous into Joyce’s hand. It was more than 
she had dared to hope for. Now there 
would be at least a little picture-book 
apiece for the children at home. 

This time Joyce saw the grin on the 
satyr’s face when they passed the foun- 
tain. She was smiling herself when they 
entered the house, where monsieur was 
waiting to escort them politely in to din- 
ner. 


& 


102 


^ Wjt ffiiant gcissorg ^ 


CHAPTER VI 

JOYCE PLAYS GHOST 


ONSIEUR CISEAUX was 
coming home to live. Ga- 
briel brought the news 
when he came back from 
market. He had met 
Henri on the road and 
heard it from him. Monsieur was com- 
ing home. That was all they knew; as 
to the day or the hour, no one could 
guess. That was the way with monsieur, 
Henri said. He was so peculiar one never 
knew what to expect. 

Although the work of opening the 
great house was begun immediately, and 




^ gH )g dKiant Sctggors ^ 


a thorough cleaning was in progress from 
garret to cellar, Brossard did not believe 
that his master would really be at home 
before the end of the week. He made his 
own plans accordingly, although he hur- 
ried Henri relentlessly with the clean- 
ing. 

As soon as Joyce heard the news, she 
made an excuse to slip away, and ran 
down to the field to Jules. She found 
him paler than usual, and there was a 
swollen look about his eyes that made her 
think that maybe he had been crying. 

“ What’s the matter? ” she asked. 
“ Aren’t you glad that your uncle is 
coming home? ” 

Jules gave a cautious glance over his 
shoulder toward the house, and then 
looked up at Joyce. Heretofore, some 
inward monitor of pride had closed his 
lips about himself whenever he had been 
with her, but, since the Thanksgiving 
104 


)e ffitant Scissors 




& 


Day that had made them such firm 
friends, he had wished every hour that 
he could tell her of his troubles. He felt 
that she was the only person in the world 
who took any interest in him. Although 
she was only three years older than him- 
self, she had that motherly little way 
with her that eldest daughters are apt to 
acquire when there is a whole brood of 
little brothers and sisters constantly 
claiming attention. 

So when Joyce asked again, “ What’s 
the matter, Jules? ” with so much anxious 
sympathy in her face and voice, the child 
found himself blurting out the truth. 

“ Brossard beat me again last night,” 
he exclaimed. Then, in response to her 
indignant exclamation, he poured out the 
whole story of his ill-treatment. “ See 
here ! ” he cried, in conclusion, unbutton- 
ing his blouse and baring his thin little 
shoulders. Great red welts lay across 
105 


^ Q£\)t @ant ggggors ^ 


them, and one arm was blue with a big 
mottled bruise. 

Joyce shivered and closed her eyes an 
instant to shut out the sight that brought 
the quick tears of sympathy. 

“ Oh, you poor little thing ! ” she cried. 
“ I’m going to tell madame.” 

“ No, don’t! ” begged Jules. “ If Bros- 
sard ever found out that I had told any- 
body, I believe that he would half-kill 
me. He punishes me for the least thing. 
I had no breakfast this morning because 
I dropped an old plate and broke it.” 

“ Do you mean to say,” cried Joyce, 
“ that you have been out here in the field 
since sunrise without a bite to eat? ” 

Jules nodded. 

“ Then I’m going straight home to get 
you something.” Before he could answer, 
she was darting over the fields like a 
little flying squirrel. 

“ Oh, what if it were Jack!” she kept 
106 


(Slant Scissors 




& 

repeating as she ran. “ Dear old Jack, 
beaten and starved, without anybody to 
love him or say a kind word to him.” 
The mere thought of such misfortune 
brought a sob. 

In a very few minutes Jules saw her 
coming across the field again, more 
slowly this time, for both hands were 
full, and without their aid she had no 
way to steady the big hat that flapped 
forward into her eyes at every step. Jules 
eyed the food ravenously. He had not 
known how weak and hungry he was 
until then. 

“ It will not be like this when your 
uncle comes home,” said Joyce, as she 
watched the big mouthfuls disappear 
down the grateful little throat. Jules 
shrugged his shoulders, answering trem- 
ulously, “ Oh, yes, it will be lots worse. 
Brossard says that my Uncle Martin has 
a terrible temper, and that he turned his 
107 


Wqt ffitant Scissors 


poor sister and my grandfather out of the 
house one stormy night. Brossard says 
he shall tell him how troublesome I am, 
and likely he will turn me out. too. Or, 
if he doesn’t do that, they will both whip 
me every day.” 

Joyce stamped her foot. “ I don’t be- 
lieve it,” she cried, indignantly. “ Bros- 
sard is only trying to scare you. Your 
uncle is an old man now, so old that he 
must be sorry for the way he acted when 
he was young. Why, of course he must 
be,” she repeated, “ or he never would 
have brought you here when you were 
left a homeless baby. More than that, I 
believe he will be angry when he finds 
how you have been treated. Maybe he 
will send Brossard away when you tell 
him.” 

“ I would not dare to tell him,” said 
Jules, shrinking back at the bare sugges- 
tion. 


& 


108 


E \ jc ©riant Scissors 




“ Then I dare/’ cried Joyce, with flash- 
ing eyes. “ I am not afraid of Brossard 
or Henri or your uncle, or any man that 
I ever knew. What’s more, I intend to 
march over here just as soon as your 
uncle comes home, and tell him right 
before Brossard how you have been 
treated.” 

Jules gasped in admiration of such 
reckless courage. “ Seems to me Bros- 
sard himself would be afraid of you if you 
looked at him that way.” Then his voice 
sank to a whisper. “ Brossard is afraid 
of one thing, I’ve heard him tell Henri 
so, and that is ghosts. They talk about 
them every night when the wind blows 
hard and makes queer noises in the chim- 
ney. Sometimes they are afraid to put 
out their candles for fear some evil spirit 
might be in the room.” 

“ I’m glad he is afraid of something, 
the mean old thing!” exclaimed Joyce. 


109 


0"tjc ffiiant Scissors 


For a few moments nothing more was 
said, but Jules felt comforted now that 
he had unburdened his long pent up little 
heart. He reached out for several blades 
of grass and began idly twisting them 
around his finger. 

Joyce sat with her hands clasped over 
her knees, and a wicked little gleam in 
her eyes that boded mischief. Presently 
she giggled as if some amusing thought 
had occurred to her, and when Jules 
looked up inquiringly she began noise- 
lessly clapping her hands together. 

“ I’ve thought of the best thing,” she 
said. “ I’ll fix old Brossard now. Jack 
and I have played ghost many a time, and 
have even scared each other while we 
were doing it, because we were so fright- 
ful-looking. We put long sheets all over 
us and went about with pumpkin jack- 
o’-lanterns on our heads. Oh, we looked 
awful, all in white, with fire shining out 


& 


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®{j t ffitant Scissors 




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of those hideous eyes and mouths. If I 
knew when Brossard was likely to whip 
you again, I’d suddenly appear on the 
scene and shriek out like a banshee and 
make him stop. Wouldn’t it be lovely? ” 
she cried, more carried away with the 
idea the longer she thought of it. “ Why, 
it would be like acting our fairy story. 
You are the Prince, and I will be the 
giant scissors and rescue you from the 
Ogre. Now let me see if I can think of 
a rhyme for you to say whenever you 
need me.” 

Joyce put her hands over her ears and 
began to mumble something that had no 
meaning whatever for Jules : “ Ghost — 
post — roast — toast, — no, that will 
never do ; need — speed — deed, — no ! 
Help — yelp (I wish I could make him 
yelp), — friend — spend — lend, — that’s 
it. I shall try that.” 

There was a long silence, during which 


&t>e (5 taut Scissors 




Joyce whispered to herself with closed 
eyes. “ Now I’ve got it,” she announced, 
triumphantly, “ and it’s every bit as good 
as Cousin Kate’s: 


Giant scissors, fearless friend, 
Hasten, pray, thy aid to lend. 




“ If you could just say that loud 
enough for me to hear, I’d come rushing 
in and save you.” 

Jules repeated the rhyme several times, 
until he was sure that he could remember 
it, and then Joyce stood up to go. 

“ Good-bye, fearless friend,” said Jules. 
“ I wish I were brave like you.” Joyce 
smiled in a superior sort of way, much 
flattered by the new title. Going home 
across the field she held her head a trifle 
higher than usual, and carried on an 
imaginary conversation with Brossard, in 
which she made him quail before her 
scathing rebukes. 


1 12 


^ gty &tant Seisms ^ 

Joyce did not take her usual walk that 
afternoon. She spent the time behind 
locked doors busy with paste, scissors, 
and a big muff-box, the best foundation 
she could find for a jack-o’-lantern. First 
she covered the box with white paper and 
cut a hideous face in one side, — great 
staring eyes, and a frightful grinning 
mouth. With a bit of wire she fastened 
a candle inside and shut down the lid. 

“ Looks too much like a box yet,” she 
said, after a critical examination. “ It 
needs some hair and a beard. Wonder 
what I can make it of.” She glanced all 
around the room for a suggestion, and 
then closed her eyes to think. Finally 
she went over to her bed, and, turning 
the covers back from one corner, began 
ripping a seam in the mattress. When 
the opening was wide enough she put 
in her thumb and finger and pulled out 
a handful of the curled hair. “ I can eas- 


z ffitant Scissors 


ily put it back when I have used it, and 
sew up the hole in the mattress,” she said 
to her conscience. “My! This is ex- 
actly what I needed.” 

The hair was mixed, white and black, 
coarse and curly as a negro’s wool. 

She covered the top of the pasteboard 
head with it, and was so pleased that she 
added long beard and fierce moustache 
to the already hideous mouth. When 
that was all done she took it into a dark 
closet and lighted the candle. The mon- 
ster’s head glared at her from the depth 
of the closet, and she skipped back and 
forth in front of it, wringing her hands 
in delight. 

“Oh, if Jack could only see it! If he 
could only see it ! ” she kept exclaiming. 

It is better than any pumpkin head we 
ever made, and scary enough to throw old 
^Brossard into a fit. I can hardly wait 
until it is dark enough to go over.” 

114 


& 


®fjc ffiiant Scissors 




& 


Meanwhile the short winter day drew 
on toward the close. Jules, out in the 
field with the goats, walked back and 
forth, back and forth, trying to keep 
warm. Brossard, who had gone five miles 
down the Paris road to bargain about 
some grain, sat comfortably in a little 
tobacco shop, with a pipe in his mouth 
and a glass and bottle on the table at his 
elbow. 

Henri was at home, still scrub- 
bing and cleaning. The front of the 
great house was in order, with even the 
fires laid on all the hearths ready for 
lighting. Now he was scrubbing the 
back stairs. His brush bumped noisily 
against the steps, and the sound of its 
scouring was nearly drowned by the 
jerky tune which the old fellow sung 
through his nose as he worked. 

A carriage drove slowly down the road 
and stopped at the gate with the scissors; 

“5 


^ STfre ffiiant Sctggors ^ 


then, in obedience to some command 
from within, the vehicle drove on to the 
smaller gate beyond. An old man with 
white hair and bristling moustache slowly 
alighted. The master had come home. 
He put out his hand as if to ring the bell, 
then on second thought drew a key from 
his pocket and fitted it in the lock. The 
gates swung back and he passed inside. 
The old house looked gray and forbid- 
ding in the dull light of the late after- 
noon. He frowned up at it, and it 
frowned down on him, standing there as 
cold and grim as itself. That was his 
only welcome. 

The doors and windows were all shut, 
so that he caught only a faint sound of 
the bump, thump of the scrubbing-brush 
as it accompanied Henri’s high-pitched 
tune down the back stairs. 

Without giving any warning of his 
arrival, he motioned the man beside the 


®jjc (Slant Scissors 




& 


coachman to follow with his trunk, and 
silently led the way up-stairs. When the 
trunk had been unstrapped and the man 
had departed, monsieur gave one slow 
glance all around the room. It was in 
perfect readiness for him. He set a 
match to the kindling laid in the grate, 
and then closed the door into the hall. 
The master had come home again, more 
silent, more mysterious in his movements 
than before. 

Henri finished his scrubbing and his 
song, and, going down into the kitchen, 
began preparations for supper. A long 
time after, Jules came up from the field, 
put the goats in their place, and crept 
in behind the kitchen stove. 

Then it was that Joyce, from her 
watch-tower of her window, saw Bros- 
sard driving home in the market-cart. 
“ Maybe I’ll have a chance to scare him 
while he is putting the horse up andj 
117 


STije ffiiant Scissors 


feeding it,” she thought. It was in the 
dim gloaming when she could easily slip 
along by the hedges without attracting 
attention. Bareheaded, and in breathless 
haste to reach the barn before Brossard, 
she ran down the road, keeping close to 
the hedge, along which the wind raced 
also, blowing the dead leaves almost as 
high as her head. 

Slipping through a hole in the hedge, 
just as Brossard drove in at the gate, she 
ran into the barn and crouched down 
behind the door. There she wrapped her- 
self in the sheet that she had brought 
with her for the purpose, and proceeded 
to strike a match to light the lantern. 
The first one flickered and went out. 
The second did the same. Brossard was 
calling angrily for Jules now, and she 
struck another match in nervous haste, 
this time touching the wick with it be- 
fore the wind could interfere. Then she 
118 




^ ffitant .Scissors ^ 


drew her dress over the lantern to hide 
the light. 

“ Wouldn’t Jack enjoy this,” she 
thought, with a daring little giggle that 
almost betrayed her hiding-place. 

“ I tell thee it is thy fault,” cried Bros- 
sard’s angry voice, drawing nearer the 
barn. 

“ But I tried,” began Jules, timidly. 

His trembling excuse was interrupted 
by Brossard, who had seized him by the 
arm. They were now on the threshold 
of the barn, which was as dark as a 
pocket inside. 

Joyce, peeping through the crack of 
the door, saw the man’s arm raised in the 
dim twilight outside. “ Oh, he is really 
going to beat him,” she thought, turning 
faint at the prospect. Then her indigna- 
tion overcame every other feeling as she 
heard a heavy halter-strap whiz through 
the air and fall with a sickening blow 


Wi jc (Giant Scissors 




across Jules’s shoulders. She had planned 
a scene something like this while she 
worked away at the lantern that after- 
noon. Now she felt as if she were act- 
ing a part in some private theatrical per- 
formance. Jules’s cry gave her the cue, 
and the courage to appear. 

As the second blow fell across Jules’s 
smarting shoulders, a low, blood-curdling 
wail came from the dark depths of the 
barn. Joyce had not practised that dis- 
mal moan of a banshee to no purpose in 
her ghost dances at home with Jack. It 
rose and fell and quivered and rose again 
in cadences of horror. There was some- 
thing awful, something inhuman, in that 
fiendish, long-drawn shriek. 

Brossard’s arm fell to his side para- 
lyzed with fear, as that same hoarse voice 
cried, solemnly: “ Brossard, beware! Be- 
ware ! ” But worse than that voice of 
sepulchral warning was the white-sheeted 


0 


120 





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figure, coming toward him with a wav- 
ering, ghostly motion, fire shooting from 
the demon-like eyes, and flaming from 
the hideous mouth. 

Brossard sank on his knees in a shiv- 
ering heap, and began crossing himself. 
His hair was upright with horror, and his 
tongue stiff. Jules knew who it was that 
danced around them in such giddy circles, 
first darting toward them with threaten- 
ing gestures, and then gliding back to 
utter one of those awful, sickening wails. 
He knew that under that fiery head and 
wrapped in that spectral dress was his 
“ fearless friend,” who, according to 
promise, had hastened her aid to lend; 
nevertheless, he was afraid of her himself. 
He had never imagined that anything 
could look so terrifying. 

The wail reached Henri’s ears and 
aroused his curiosity. Cautiously open- 
ing the kitchen door, he thrust out his 


1 21 


®J)e ffitant Scissors 


head, and then nearly fell backward in 
his haste to draw it in again and slam 
the door. One glimpse of the ghost in 
the barn-yard was quite enough for 
Henri. 

Altogether the performance probably 
did not last longer than a minute, but 
each of the sixty seconds seemed endless 
to Brossard. With a final die-away moan 
Joyce glided toward the gate, delighted 
beyond measure with her success; but 
her delight did not last long. Just as she 
turned the corner of the house, some one 
standing in the shadow of it clutched her. 
A strong arm was thrown around her, 
and a firm hand snatched the lantern, and 
tore the sheet away from her face. 

It was Joyce’s turn to be terrified. 
“ Let me go ! ” she shrieked, in English. 
With one desperate wrench she broke 
away, and by the light of the grinning 
jack-o’-lantern saw who was her captor. 




122 


2Hj e ffiiant Scissors 






She was face to face with Monsieur 
Ciseaux. 

“What does this mean? ” he asked, 
severely. “ Why do you come masquer- 
ading here to frighten my servants in 
this manner? ” 

For an instant Joyce stood speechless. 
Her boasted courage had forsaken her. 
It was only for an instant, however, for 
the rhyme that she had made seemed to 
sound in her ears as distinctly as if Jules 
were calling to her: 

“ Giant scissors, fearless friend, 

Hasten, pray, thy aid to lend.” 

“ I will be a fearless friend,” she 
thought. Looking defiantly up into the 
angry face she demanded : “ Then why 
do you keep such servants? I came be- 
cause they needed to be frightened, and 
I’m glad you caught me, for I told Jules 
that I should tell you about them as soon 
123 


®fje ffiiant Scissors 




& 


as you got home. Brossard has starved 
and beaten him like a dog ever since he 
has been here. I just hope that you will 
look at the stripes and bruises on his 
poor little back. He begged me not to 
tell, for Brossard said you would likely 
drive him away, as you did your brother 
and sister. But even if you do, the neigh- 
bours say that an orphan asylum would 
be a far better home for Jules than this 
has been. I hope you’ll excuse me, mon- 
sieur, I truly do, but I’m an American, 
and I can’t stand by and keep still when 
I see anybody being abused, even if I am 
a girl, and it isn’t polite for me to talk 
so to older people.” 

Joyce fired out the words as if they 
had been bullets, and so rapidly that mon- 
sieur could scarcely follow her meaning. 
Then, having relieved her mind, and fear- 
ing that maybe she had been rude in 
speaking so forcibly to such an old gen- 
124 


^ ffiiant Scissors ^ 


tleman, she very humbly begged his par- 
don. Before he could recover from her 
rapid change in manner and her torrent 
of words, she reached out her hand, say- 
ing, in the meekest of little voices, “ And 
will you please give me back those things, 
monsieur? The sheet is Madame Gre- 
ville’s, and I’ve got to stuff that hair back 
in the mattress to-night.” 

Monsieur gave them to her, still too 
astonished for words. He had never 
before heard any child speak in such a 
way. This one seemed more like a wild, 
uncanny little sprite than like any of the 
little girls he had known heretofore. Be- 
fore he could recover from his bewilder- 
ment, Joyce had gone. “ Good night, 
monsieur,” she called, as the gate clanged 
behind her. 


125 


®{je ffitant Scissors 






CHAPTER VII 

OLD “ NUMBER THIRTY - ONE ” 

O sooner had the gate 
closed upon the subdued 
little ghost, shorn now of 
its terrors, than the old 
man strode forward to the 
place where Brossard 
crouched in the straw, still crossing him- 
self. This sudden appearance of his mas- 
ter at such a time only added to Bros- 
sard’s fright. As for Jules, his knees 
shook until he could scarcely stand. 

Henri, his curiosity lending him cour- 
age, cautiously opened the kitchen door 
to peer out again. Emboldened by the 
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(Giant Scissors 




& 


silence, he flung the door wide open, 
sending a broad stream of lamplight 
across the little group in the barn-yard. 
Without a word of greeting monsieur 
laid hold of the trembling Jules and drew 
him nearer the door. Throwing open 
the child’s blouse, he examined the thin 
little shoulders, which shrank away as if 
to dodge some expected blow. 

“ Go to my room,” was all the old man 
said to him. Then he turned fiercely 
toward Brossard. His angry tones 
reached Jules even after he had mounted 
the stairs and closed the door. The child 
crept close to the cheerful fire, and, 
crouching down on the rug, waited in a 
shiver of nervousness for his uncle’s step 
on the stair. 

Meanwhile, Joyce, hurrying home all 
a-tingle with the excitement of her ad- 
venture, wondered anxiously what would 
be the result of it. Under cover of the 


127 


TO )t ffitant &tmm ^ 

dusk she slipped into the house unob- 
served. There was barely time to dress 
for dinner. When she made her appear- 
ance monsieur complimented her unusu- 
ally red cheeks. 

“ Doubtless mademoiselle has had a 
fine promenade,” he said. 

“ No,” answered Joyce, with a blush 
that made them redder still, and that 
caused madame to look at her so keenly 
that she felt those sharp eyes must be 
reading her inmost thoughts. It dis- 
turbed her so that she upset the salt, 
spilled a glass of water, and started to 
eat her soup with a fork. She glanced in 
an embarrassed way from madame to 
monsieur, and gave a nervous little laugh. 

“ The little mademoiselle has been in 
mischief again,” remarked monsieur, with 
a smile. “ What is it this time? ” 

The smile was so encouraging that 
Joyce’s determination not to tell melted 
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^ K\)t <&imt gctssorg ^ 

away, and she began a laughable account 
of the afternoon’s adventure. At first 
both the old people looked shocked. Mon- 
sieur shrugged his shoulders and pulled 
his gray beard thoughtfully. Madame 
threw up her hands at the end of each 
sentence like horrified little exclamation 
points. But when Joyce had told the 
entire story neither of them had a word 
of blame, because their sympathies were 
so thoroughly aroused for Jules. 

“ I shall ask Monsieur Ciseaux to allow 
the child to visit here sometimes,” said 
madame, her kind old heart full of pity 
for the motherless little fellow; “and I 
shall also explain that it was only your 
desire to save Jules from ill-treatment 
that caused you to do such an unusual 
thing. Otherwise he might think you 
too bold and too — well, peculiar, to be 
a fit playmate for his little nephew.” 

“ Oh, was it really so improper and 
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©je (Slant .Scissors 


horrid of me, madame? ” asked Joyce, 
anxiously. 

Madame hesitated. “ The circum- 
stances were some excuse,” she finally 
admitted. “ But I certainly should not 
want a little daughter of mine to be out 
after dark by herself on such a wild er- 
rand. In this country a little girl would 
not think it possible to do such a thing.” 

Joyce’s face was very sober as she arose 
to leave the room. “ I do wish that I 
could be proper like little French girls,” 
she said, with a sigh. 

Madame drew her toward her, kissing 
her on both cheeks. It was such an un- 
usual thing for madame to do that Joyce 
could scarcely help showing some sur- 
prise. Feeling that the caress was an 
assurance that she was not in disgrace, 
as she had feared, she ran up-stairs, so 
light-hearted that she sang on the way. 

As the door closed behind her, mon- 
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^ El )t ffldant Scissors ^ 

sieur reached for his pipe, saying, as he 
did so, “ She has a heart of gold, the little 
mademoiselle/’ 

“Yes,” assented madame; “but she is 
a strange little body, so untamed and 
original. I am glad that her cousin re- 
turns soon, for the responsibility is too 
great for my old shoulders. One never 
knows what she will do next.” 

Perhaps it was for this reason that 
madame took Joyce with her when she 
went to Tours next day. She felt safer 
when the child was in her sight. 

“ It is so much nicer going around with 
you than Marie,” said Joyce, giving 
madame an affectionate little pat, as they 
stood before the entrance of a great 
square building, awaiting admission. 
“ You take me to places that I have never 
seen before. What place is this? ” She 
stooped to read the inscription on the 
door-plate : 

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GKje (Siatxt Scissors 




& 


“ Little Sisters of the Poor.” 

Before her question could be answered, 
the door was opened by a wrinkled old 
woman, in a nodding white cap, who led 
them into a reception-room at the end of 
the hall. 

“ Ask for Sister Denisa,” said madame, 
“ and give her my name.” 

The old woman shuffled out of the 
room, and madame, taking a small mem- 
orandum-book from her pocket, began to 
study it. Joyce sat looking about her 
with sharp, curious glances. She won- 
dered if these little sisters of the poor 
were barefoot beggar girls, who went 
about the streets with ragged shawls over 
their heads, and with baskets in their 
hands. In her lively imagination she pic- 
tured row after row of such unfortunate 
children, marching out in the morning, 
empty-handed, and creeping back at night 
132 


)t (Slant cSctggors 




& 

with the results of the day’s begging. 
She did not like to ask about them, how- 
ever, and, in a few minutes, her curiosity 
was satisfied without the use of ques- 
tions. 

Sister Denisa entered the room. She 
was a beautiful woman, in the plain black 
habit and white head-dress of a sister of 
charity. 

“ Oh, they’re nuns ! ” exclaimed Joyce, 
in a disappointed whisper. She had been 
hoping to see the beggar girls. She had 
often passed the convent in St. Sympho- 
rien, and caught glimpses of the nuns 
through the high barred gate. She had 
wondered how it must feel to be shut 
away from the world; to see only the 
patient white faces of the other sisters, 
and to walk with meekly folded hands 
and downcast eyes always in the same 
old paths. 

But Sister Denisa was different from 
i33 


^ TOje (Slant Scissors ^ 

the nuns that she had seen before. Some 
inward joy seemed to shine through her 
beautiful face and make it radiant. She 
laughed often, and there was a happy 
twinkle in her clear, gray eyes. When 
she came into the room, she seemed to 
bring the outdoors with her, there was 
such sunshine and fresh air in the cheeri- 
ness of her greeting. 

Madame had come to visit an old pen- 
sioner of hers who was in the home. 

After a short conversation, Sister Denisa 
rose to lead the way to her. “ Would 
the little mademoiselle like to go through 
the house, while madame is engaged? ” 
asked the nun. 

“ Oh, yes, thank you,” answered Joyce, 
who had found by this time that this 
home was not for little beggar girls, but 
for old men and women. Joyce had 
known very few old people in her short 
life, except her Grandmother Ware; and 
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®(je ffiiant Scissors 






this grandmother was one of those dear, 
sunny old souls, whom everybody loves 
to claim, whether they are in the family 
or not. Some of Joyce’s happiest days 
had been spent in her grandmother’s 
country home, and the host of happy 
memories that she had stored up during 
those visits served to sweeten all her after 
life. 

Old age, to Joyce, was associated with 
the most beautiful things that she had 
ever known: the warmest hospitality, the 
tenderest love, the cheeriest home-life. 
Strangers were in the old place now, and 
Grandmother Ware was no longer living, 
but, for her sake, Joyce held sacred every 
wrinkled face set round with snow-white 
hair, just as she looked tenderly on all 
old-fashioned flowers, because she had 
seen them first in her grandmother’s 
garden. 

Sister Denisa led the way into a large, 
i35 




sunny room, and Joyce looked around 
eagerly. It was crowded with old men. 
Some were sitting idly on the benches 
around the walls, or dozing in chairs near 
the stove. Some smoked, some gathered 
around the tables where games of check- 
ers and chess were going on ; some gazed 
listlessly out of the windows. It was 
good to see how dull faces brightened, as 
Sister Denisa passed by with a smile for 
this group, a cheery word for the next. 
She stopped to brush the hair back from 
the forehead of an old paralytic, and 
pushed another man gently aside, when 
he blocked the way, with such a sweet- 
voiced “ Pardon, little father,” that it was 
like a caress. One white-haired old fel- 
low, in his second childhood, reached out 
and caught at her dress, as she passed by. 

Crossing a porch where were more old 
men sitting sadly alone, or walking so- 
ciably up and down in the sunshine, Sis- 


(Stant .Scissors 




& 


ter Denisa passed along a court and held 
the door open for Joyce to enter another 
large room. 

“ Here is the rest of our family/’ she 
said. “ A large one, is it not? Two hun- 
dred poor old people that nobody wants, 
and nobody cares what becomes of.” 

Joyce looked around the room and saw 
on every hand old age that had nothing 
beautiful, nothing attractive. “ Were 
they beggars when they were little? ” 
she asked. 

“ No, indeed,” answered the nun. 
“ That is the saddest part of it to me. 
Nearly all these poor creatures you see 
here once had happy homes of their own. 
That pitiful old body over by the stove, 
shaking with palsy, was once a gay, rich 
countess; the invalid whom madame vis- 
its was a marquise. It would break your 
heart, mademoiselle, to hear the stories 
of some of these people, especially those 
137 


^ gflje ffitant Scissors ^ 

who have been cast aside by ungrateful 
children, to whom their support has be- 
come a burden. Several of these women 
have prosperous grandchildren, to whom 
we have appealed in vain. There is no 
cruelty that hurts me like such cruelty to 
old age.” 

Just then another nun came into the 
room, said something to Sister Denisa in 
a low voice, and glided out like a silent 
shadow, her rosary swaying back and 
forth with every movement of her cling- 
ing black skirts. “ I am needed up- 
stairs,” said Sister Denisa, turning to 
Joyce. “ Will you come up and see the 
sleeping-rooms? ” 

They went up the freshly scrubbed 
steps to a great dormitory, where, against 
the bare walls, stood long rows of narrow 
cots. They were all empty, except one 
at the farthest end, where an old woman 
lay with her handkerchief across her eyes. 

138 


^ ffitant <Sciggorg ^ 

“ Poor old Number Thirty-one ! ” said 
Sister Denisa. “ She seems to feel her 
unhappy position more than any one in 
the house. The most of them are thank- 
ful for mere bodily comfort, — satisfied 
with food and shelter and warmth; but 
she is continually pining for her old home 
surroundings. Will you not come and 
speak to her in English? She married 
a countryman of yours, and lived over 
thirty years in America. She speaks of 
that time as the happiest in her life. I 
am sure that you can give her a great 
deal of pleasure.” 

“ Is she ill? ” said Joyce, timidly draw- 
ing back as the nun started across the 
room. 

“ No, I think not,” was the answer. 
“ She says she can’t bear to be herded in 
one room with all those poor creatures, 
like a flock of sheep, with nothing to do 
but wait for death. She has always been 
139 


®ije ffitant Sciggorg 


accustomed to having a room of her own, 
so that her greatest trial is in having no 
privacy. She must eat, sleep, and live 
with a hundred other old women always 
around her. She comes up here to bed 
whenever she can find the slightest ache 
for an excuse, just to be by herself. I 
wish that we could give her a little spot 
that she could call her own, and shut the 
door on, and feel alone. But it cannot 
be,” she added, with a sigh. “ It taxes 
our strength to the utmost to give them 
all even a bare home.” 

By this time they had reached the cot, 
over the head of which hung a card, bear- 
ing the number “ Thirty-one.” 

“ Here is a little friend to see you, 
grandmother,” said Sister Denisa, plac- 
ing a chair by the bedside, and stooping 
to smooth back the locks of silvery hair 
that had strayed out from under the 
coarse white nightcap. Then she passed 
140 




®ije (Giant Scissors 




& 

quickly on to her other duties, leaving 
Joyce to begin the conversation as best 
she could. The old woman looked at her 
sharply with piercing dark eyes, which 
must have been beautiful in their youth. 
The intense gaze embarrassed Joyce, and 
to break the silence she hurriedly stam- 
mered out the first thing that came to 
her mind. 

“Are you ill to-day?” 

The simple question had a startling 
effect on the old woman. She raised her- 
self on one elbow, and reached out for 
Joyce's hand, drawing her eagerly nearer. 
“ Ah,” she cried, “ you speak the lan- 
guage that my husband taught me to 
love, and the tongue my little children 
lisped; but they are all dead now, and 
I've come back to my native land to find 
no home but the one that charity pro- 
vides.” 

Her words ended in a wail, and she 


Etye (Siant Scissors 




sank back on her pillow. “ And this is 
my birthday,” she went on. “ Seventy- 
three years old, and a pauper, cast out to 
the care of strangers.” 

The tears ran down her wrinkled 
cheeks, and her mouth trembled pitifully. 
Joyce was distressed; she looked around 
for Sister Denisa, but saw that they were 
alone, they two, in the great bare dormi- 
tory, with its long rows of narrow white 
cots. The child felt utterly helpless to 
speak a word of comfort, although she 
was so sorry for the poor lonely old crea- 
ture that she began to cry softly to her- 
self. She leaned over, and taking one of 
the thin, blue-veined hands in hers, patted 
it tenderly with her plump little fingers. 

“ I ought not to complain,” said the 
trembling voice, still broken by sobs. 
“ We have food and shelter and sunshine 
and the sisters. Ah, that little Sister De- 
nisa, she is indeed a smile of God to us 
142 


& 




»» 


,MdJ odJ Jo ono enidaS 

"eiod ni ed/tBd donbv 


44 Gaklng one of tbe tbtn, blue* 
vetneb banba In bera” 





























































- 






' 






^ Efre (Kiant gcissorg ^ 

all. But at seventy-three one wants more 
than a cup of coffee and a clean handker- 
chief. One wants something besides a 
bed and being just Number Thirty-one 
among two hundred other paupers.” 

“I am so sorry!” exclaimed Joyce, 
with such heartfelt earnestness that the 
sobbing woman felt the warmth of her 
sympathy, and looked up with a brighter 
face. 

“ Talk to me,” she exclaimed. “ It has 
been so long since I have heard your lan- 
guage.” 

While she obeyed Joyce kept thinking 
of her Grandmother Ware. She could 
see her outdoors among her flowers, the 
dahlias and touch-me-nots, the four- 
o’clocks and the cinnamon roses, taking 
such pride and pleasure in her sweet posy 
beds. She could see her beside the little 
table on the shady porch, making tea for 
some old neighbour who had dropped in 
M3 


®%e ffiiattt Scissors 




to spend the afternoon with her. Or she 
was asleep in her armchair by the west- 
ern window, her Bible in her lap and a 
smile on her sweet, kindly face. How 
dreary and empty the days must seem to 
poor old Number Thirty-one, with none 
of these things to brighten them. 

Joyce could scarcely keep the tears out 
of her voice while she talked. Later, 
when Sister Denisa came back, Joyce was 
softly humming a lullaby, and Number 
Thirty-one, with a smile on her pitiful 
old face, was sleeping like a little child. 

“You will come again, dear mademoi- 
selle, said Sister Denisa, as she kissed 
the child good-bye at the door. “You 
have brought a blessing, may you carry 
one away as well ! ” 

Joyce looked inquiringly at madame. 

You may come whenever you like,” 
the answer. “ Marie can bring you 
you are in town.” 

144 



& 


(Giant Scissors 






Joyce was so quiet on the way home 
that madame feared the day had been too 
fatiguing for her. “ No,” said Joyce, so- 
berly. “ I was only thinking about poor 
old Number Thirty-one. I am sorrier for 
her than I was for Jules. I used to think 
that there was nothing so sad as being a 
little child without any father or mother, 
and having to live in an asylum. I’ve 
often thought how lovely it would be to 
go around and find a beautiful home for 
every little orphan in the world. But I 
believe, now, that it is worse to be old 
that way. Old people can’t play to- 
gether, and they haven’t anything to look 
forward to, and it makes them so mis- 
erable to remember all the things they 
have had and lost. If I had enough 
money to adopt anybody, I would adopt 
some poor old grandfather or grand- 
mother and make’m happy all the rest 
of their days.” 


i45 


^ Wqz (Kiant gctesors ^ 


CHAPTER VIII 

PLANS AND AN ACCIDENT 

HAT night, when Marie 
came in to light the lamps 
and brush Joyce’s hair 
before dinner, she had 
some news to tell. 

“ Brossard has been 
sent away from the Ciseaux place,” she 
said. “ A new man is coming to-morrow, 
and my friend, Clotilde Robard, has al- 
ready taken the position of housekeeper. 
She says that a very different life has 
begun for little Monsieur Jules, and that 
in his fine new clothes one could never 
recognize the little goatherd. He looks 
146 


CHRISTMAS 



SJje (Stant Scissors 




& 


now like what he is, a gentleman’s son. 
He has the room next to monsieur’s, all 
freshly furnished, and after New Year 
a tutor is coming from Paris. 

“ But they say that it is pitiful to see 
how greatly the child fears his uncle. 
He does not understand the old man’s 
cold, forbidding manner, and it provokes 
monsieur to have the little one tremble 
and grow pale whenever he speaks. Clo- 
tilde says that Madame Greville told 
monsieur that the boy needed games and 
young companions to make him more 
like other children, and he promised her 
that Monsieur Jules should come over 
here to-morrow afternoon to play with 
you.” 

“Oh, good!” cried Joyce. “We’ll 
have another barbecue if the day is fine. 
I am so glad that we do not have to be 
bothered any more by those tiresome old 
goats.” 


*47 


^ El )t (Siant %cimx$ ^ 


By the time the next afternoon arrived, 
however, Joyce was far too much inter- 
ested in something else to think of a bar- 
becue. Cousin Kate had come back from 
Paris with a trunk full of pretty things, 
and a plan for the coming Christmas. 
At first she thought of taking only ma- 
dame into her confidence, and preparing 
a small Christmas tree for Joyce; but 
afterward she concluded that it would 
give the child more pleasure if she were 
allowed to take part in the preparations. 
It would keep her from being homesick 
by giving her something else to think 
about. 

Then madame proposed inviting a few 
of the little peasant children who had 
never seen a Christmas tree. The more 
they discussed the plan the larger it grew, 
like a rolling snowball. By lunch-time 
madame had a list of thirty children, who 
were to be bidden to the Noel fete and 

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®l ) t ffitant Scissors 






Cousin Kate had decided to order a tree 
tall enough to touch the ceiling. 

When Jules came over, awkward and 
shy with the consciousness of his new 
clothes, he found Joyce sitting in the 
midst of yards of gaily coloured tarletan. 
It was heaped up around her in bright 
masses of purple and orange and scarlet 
and green, and she was making it into 
candy-bags for the tree. 

In a few minutes Jules had forgotten 
all about himself, and was as busy as she, 
pinning the little stocking-shaped pat- 
terns in place, and carefully cutting out 
those fascinating bags. 

“ You would be lots of help,” said 
Joyce, “ if you could come over every 
day, for there’s all the ornaments to un- 
pack, and the corn to shell, and pop, and 
string. It will take most of my time to 
dress the dolls, and there’s such a short 
time to do everything in.” 

149 


^ Wqz giant ^ 


“ You never saw any pop-corn, did you, 
Jules? ” asked Cousin Kate. “When I 
was here last time, I couldn’t find it any- 
where in France; but the other day a 
friend told me of a grocer in Paris, who 
imports it for his American customers 
every winter. So I went there. Joyce 
suppose you get the popper and show 
Jules what the corn is like.” 

Madame was interested also, as she 
watched the little brown kernels shaken 
back and forth in their wire cage over 
the glowing coals. When they began 
popping open, the little seeds suddenly 
turning into big white blossoms, she sent 
Rosalie running to bring monsieur to see 
the novel sight. 

“We can eat and work at the same 
time,” said Joyce, as she filled a dish with 
the corn, and called Jules back to the 
table, where he had been cutting tarletan. 
“ There’s no time to lose. See what a 
150 


®ije (Slant Scissors 




& 

funny grain this is ! ” she cried, picking 
up one that lay on the top of the dish. 
“ It looks like Therese, the fishwoman, 
in her white cap.” 

“ And here is a goat’s head,” said Jules, 
picking up another grain. “ And this 
one looks like a fat pigeon.” 

He had forgotten his shyness entirely 
now, and was laughing and talking as 
easily as Jack could have done. 

“ Jules,” said Joyce, suddenly, looking 
around to see that the older people were 
too busy with their own conversation to 
notice hers. “Jules, why don’t you talk 
to your Uncle Martin the way you do to 
me? He would like you lots better if 
you would. Robard says that you get 
pale and frightened every time he speaks 
to you, and it provokes him for you to be 
so timid.” 

Jules dropped his eyes. “ I cannot help 
it,” he exclaimed. “ He looks so grim 
151 


ffiiant gctasorg ^ 

and cross that my voice just won’t come 
out of my throat when I open my 
mouth.” 

Joyce studied him critically, with her 
head tipped a little to one side. “ Well, 

I must say,” she exclaimed, finally, 

“ that, for a boy born in America, you 
have the least dare about you of anybody 
I ever saw. Your Uncle Martin isn’t any 
grimmer or crosser than a man I know 
at home. There’s Judge Ward, so big 
and solemn and dignified that everybody 
is half-way afraid of him. Even grown 
people have always been particular about 
what they said to him. 

“ Last summer his little nephew, Char- 
ley Ward, came to visit him. Charley’s 
just a little thing, still in dresses, and he 
calls his uncle, Bill. Think of anybody 
daring to call Judge Ward, Bill! No 
matter what the judge was doing, or how 
glum he looked, if Charley took a notion, 

152 




























^ (Slant Scissors ^ 

he would go up and stand in front of him, 
and say, ‘ Laugh, Bill, laugh ! 9 If the 
judge happened to be reading, he’d have 
to put down his book, and no matter 
whether he felt funny or not, or whether 
there was anything to laugh at or not, 
he would have to throw his head back 
and just roar. Charley like to see his 
fat sides shake, and his white teeth shine. 
I’ve heard people say that the judge likes 
Charley better than anybody else in the 
world, because he’s the only person who 
acts as if he wasn’t afraid of him.” 

Jules sat still a minute, considering, 
and then asked, anxiously, “ But what 
do you suppose would happen if I should 
say, ‘ Laugh, Martin, laugh,’ to my 
uncle? ” 

Joyce shrugged her shoulders impa- 
tiently. “ Mercy, Jules, I did not mean 
that you should act like a three-year- 
old baby. I meant that you ought to 
153 


®tje (St ant Scissors 


talk up to your uncle some. Now this 
is the way you are.” She picked up a 
kernel of the unpopped corn, and held it 
out for him to see. “ You shut yourself 
up in a little hard ball like this, so that 
your uncle can’t get acquainted with you. 
How can he know what is inside of your 
head if you always shut up like a clam 
whenever he comes near you? This is 
the way that you ought to be.” She shot 
one of the great white grains toward him 
with a deft flip of her thumb and finger. 
“ Be free and open with him.” 

Jules put the tender morsel in his 
mouth and ate it thoughtfully. “ I’ll 
try,” he promised, “ if you really think 
that it would please him, and I can think 
of anything to say. You don’t know how 
I dread going to the table when every- 
thing is always so still that we can hear 
the clock tick.” 

“ Well, you take my advice,” said 
i54 


& 


ts gDij t (Slant Scissors ^ 


Joyce. “ Talk about anything. Tell him 
about our Thanksgiving feast and the 
Christmas tree, and ask him if you can’t 
come over every day to help. I wouldn’t 
let anybody think that I was a coward.” 

Joyce’s little lecture had a good effect, 
and monsieur saw the wisdom of Ma- 
dame Greville’s advice when Jules came 
to the table that night. He had brought 
a handful of the wonderful corn to show 
his uncle, and in the conversation that it 
brought about he unconsciously showed 
something else, — something of his sensi- 
tive inner self that aroused his uncle’s 
interest. 

Every afternoon of the week that fol- 
lowed found Jules hurrying over to Ma- 
dame Greville’s to help with the Christ- 
mas preparations. He strung yards of 
corn, and measured out the nuts and 
candy for each of the gay bags. Twice 
he went in the carriage to Tours with 
i55 


Cfre ffiiant Scissors ^ 

Cousin Kate and Joyce, to help buy pres- 
ents for the thirty little guests. He was 
jostled by the holiday shoppers in 
crowded aisles. He stood enraptured in 
front of wonderful show-windows, and 
he had the joy of choosing fifteen things 
from piles of bright tin trumpets, drums, 
jumping-jacks, and picture-books. Joyce 
chose the presents for the girls. 

The tree was bought and set up in a 
large unused room back of the library, 
and as soon as each article was in readi- 
ess it was carried in and laid on a table 
eside it. Jules used to steal in some- 
times and look at the tapers, the beautiful 
oloured glass balls, the gilt stars and 
glittering tinsel, and wonder how the 
stately cedar would look in all that array 
f loveliness. Everything belonging to 
it seemed sacred, even the unused scraps 
of bright tarletan and the bits of broken 
candles. He would not let Marie sweep 
156 


^ Wl ) t (Kiant Scissors ^ 


them up to be burned, but gathered them 
carefully into a box and carried them 
home. There were several things that 
he had rescued from her broom, — one 
of those beautiful red balls, cracked on 
one side it is true, but gleaming like a 
mammoth red cherry on the other. 
There were scraps of tinsel and odds and 
ends of ornaments that had been broken 
or damaged by careless handling. These 
he hid away in a chest in his room, as 
carefully as a miser would have hoarded 
a bag of gold. 

Clotilde Robard, the housekeeper, won- 
dered why she found his candle burned 
so low several mornings. She would have 
wondered still more if she had gone into 
his room awhile before daybreak. He 
had awakened early, and, sitting up in 
bed with the quilts wrapped around him, 
spread the scraps of tarletan on his knees. 
He was piecing together with his awk- 
i57 




Wqz ffitant Scissors 


& 



ward little fingers enough to make sev- 
eral tiny bags. 

Henri missed his spade one morning, 
and hunted for it until he was out of 
patience. It was nowhere to be seen. 
Half an hour later, coming back to the 
house, he found it hanging in its usual 
place, where he had looked for it a dozen 
times at least. Jules had taken it down 
to the woods to dig up a little cedar-tree, 
so little that it was not over a foot high 
when it was planted in a box. 

Clotilde had to be taken into the secret, 
for he could not hide it from her. “ It 
is for my Uncle Martin,” he said, timidly. 
“ Do you think he will like it? ” 

The motherly housekeeper looked at 
the poor little tree, decked out in its 
scraps of cast-off finery, and felt a sob 
rising in her throat, but she held up her 
hands with many admiring exclamations 
that made Jules glow with pride. 

158 


^ Ws t ffiiant &tmm ^ 

“ I have no beautiful white strings of 
pop-corn to hang over it like wreaths of 
snow,” he said, “ so I am going down the 
lane for some mistletoe that grows in 
one of the highest trees. The berries are 
like lovely white wax beads.” 

“You are a good little lad,” said the 
housekeeper, kindly, as she gave his head 
an affectionate pat. “ I shall have to make 
something to hang on that tree myself; 
some gingerbread figures, maybe. I used 
to know how to cut out men and horses 
and pigs, — nearly all the animals. I 
must try it again some day soon.” 

A happy smile spread all over Jules’s 
face as he thanked her. The words, 
“ You are a good little lad,” sent a warm 
glow of pleasure through him, and rang 
like music in his ears all the way down 
the lane. How bright the world looked 
this frosty December morning ! What 
cheeriness there was in the ring of 
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)c ffitaut Scissors 


Henri’s axe as he chopped away at the 
stove- wood ! What friendliness in the 
baker’s whistle, as he rattled by in his 
big cart! Jules found himself whistling, 
too, for sheer gladness, and all because of 
no more kindness than might have been 
thrown to a dog; a pat on the head and 
the words, “You are a good little lad.” 


& 


Sometime after, it may have been two 
hours or more, Madame Greville was 
startled by a wild, continuous ringing of 
the bell at her front gate. Somebody was 
sending peal after peal echoing through 
the garden, with quick, impatient jerks 
of the bell-wire. She hurried out herself 
to answer the summons. 

Berthe had already shot back the bolt 
and showed Clotilde leaning against the 
stone post, holding her fat sides and com- 
pletely exhausted by her short run from 
the Ciseaux house. 

160 


E\}t (Slant <£ct ssorg ^ 


“ Will madame send Gabriel for the 
doctor? ” she cried, gasping for breath 
at every word. “ The little Monsieur 
Jules has fallen from a tree and is badly 
hurt. We do not know how much, for 
he is still unconscious and his uncle is 
away from home. Henri found him lying 
under a tree with a big bunch of mistle- 
toe in his arms. He carried him up-stairs 
while I ran over to ask you to send Ga- 
briel quickly on a horse for the doctor.” 

“ Gabriel shall go immediately,” said 
Madame Greville, “ and I shall follow 
you as soon as I have given the order.” 

Clotilde started back in as great haste 
as her weight would allow, puffing and 
blowing and wiping her eyes on her apron 
at every step. Madame overtook her be- 
fore she had gone many rods. Always 
calm and self-possessed in every emer- 
gency, madame took command now; sent 
the weeping Clotilde to look for old linen, 
161 


^ Efrc &iant 0 4 

Henri to the village for Monsieur Ci- 
seaux, and then turned her attention to 
Jules. 

“ To think,” said Clotilde, coming into 
the room, “ that the last thing the poor 
little lamb did was to show me his Christ- 
mas tree that he was making ready for 
his uncle ! ” She pointed to the corner 
where it stood, decked by awkward boy- 
ish hands in its pitiful collection of scraps. 

“ Poor little fellow ! ” said madame, 
with tears in her own eyes. “ He has 
done the best he could. Put it in the 
closet, Clotilde. Jules would not want 
it to be seen before Christmas.” 

Madame stayed until the doctor had 
made his visit; then the report that she 
carried home was that Jules had regained 
consciousness, and that, as far as could 
be discovered, his only injury was a 
broken leg. 

Joyce took refuge in the pear-tree. It 
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®tje ffitant Scissors 




0 

was not alone because Jules was hurt that 
she wanted to cry, but because they must 
have the Noel fete without him. She 
knew how bitterly he would be disap- 
pointed. 


^ gp | )t ffiiant Scissors ^ 


CHAPTER IX 

A GREAT DISCOVERY 

NLY two more nights till 
Christmas eve, two more 
nights, two more nights,” 
sang Joyce to Jules in a 
sort of chant. She was 
sitting beside his bed with 
a box in her lap, full of little dolls, which 
she was dressing. Every day since his 
accident she had been allowed to make 
him two visits, — one in the morning, 
and one in the afternoon. They helped 
wonderfully in shortening the long, tedi- 
ous days for Jules. True, Madame Gre- 
ville came often with broths and jellies, 
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^ )e (Riant .Scissors ^ 

Cousin Kate made flying visits to leave 
rare hothouse grapes and big bunches 
of violets; Clotilde hung over him with 
motherly tenderness, and his uncle looked 
into the room many times a day to see 
that he wanted nothing. 

Jules’s famished little heart drank in 
all this unusual kindness and attention as 
greedily as the parched earth drinks in 
the rain. Still, he would have passed 
many a long, restless hour, had it not 
been for Joyce’s visits. 

She brought over a photograph of the 
house at home, with the family seated in 
a group on the front porch. Jules held 
it close while she introduced each one of 
them. By the time he had heard all 
about Holland’s getting lost the day the 
circus came to town, and Jack’s taking 
the prize in a skating contest, and Mary’s 
setting her apron on fire, and the baby’s 
sweet little ways when he said his pray- 
i6 5 


®5je (Slant Scissors 


ers, or played peek-a-boo, he felt very 
well acquainted with the entire Ware 
family. Afterward, when Joyce had gone, 
he felt his loneliness more than ever. He 
lay there, trying to imagine how it must 
feel to have a mother and sisters and 
brothers all as fond of each other as 
Joyce’s were, and to live in the midst of 
such good times as always went on in 
the little brown house. 

Monsieur Ciseaux, sitting by his fire 
with the door open between the two 
rooms, listened to Joyce’s merry chatter 
with almost as much interest as Jules. 
He would have been ashamed to admit 
how eagerly he listened for her step on 
the stairs every day, or what longings 
wakened in his lonely old heart, when he 
sat by his loveless fireside after she had 
gone home, and there was no more sound 
of children’s voices in the next room. 
There had been good times in the old 



Elje ffitant Scissors 




& 

Ciseaux house also, once, and two little 
brothers and a sister had played in that 
very room; but they had grown up long 
ago, and the ogre of selfishness and mis- 
understanding had stolen in and killed all 
their happiness. Ah, well, there was 
much that the world would never know 
about that misunderstanding. There was 
much to forgive and forget on both 
sides. 

Joyce had a different story for each 
visit. To-day she had just finished tell- 
ing Jules the fairy-tale of which he never 
tired, the tale of the giant scissors. 

“ I never look at those scissors over the 
gate without thinking of you,” said Jules, 
“ and the night when you played that I 
was the Prince, and you came to rescue 
me. 

“ I wish I could play scissors again, 
and rescue somebody else that I know,” 
answered Joyce. “ I’d take poor old 
167 


^ gftg (Siant gctesorg ^ 


Number Thirty-one away from the home 
of the Little Sisters of the Poor. ,, 

“What’s Number Thirty-one?” asked 
Jules. “ You never told me about that.” 

“Didn’t I?” asked Joyce, in surprise. 
“ She is a lonely old woman that the sis- 
ters take care of. I have talked about 
her so often, and written home so much, 
that I thought I had told everybody. I 
can hardly keep from crying whenever I 
think of her. Marie and I stop every day 
we go into town and take her flowers. 
I have been there four times since my 
first visit with madame. Sometimes she 
tells me things that happened when she 
was a little girl here in France, but she 
talks to me oftenest in English about the 
time when she lived in America. I can 
hardly imagine that she was ever as 
young as I am, and that she romped with 
her brothers as I did with Jack.” 

“ Tell some of the things that she told 
168 


^ gTl )t ffiiant Stmoxs ^ 

you,” urged Jules; so Joyce began re- 
peating all that she knew about Number 
Thirty-one. 

It was a pathetic little tale that brought 
tears to Jules’s eyes, and a dull pain to 
the heart of the old man who listened in 
the next room. “ I wish I were rich,” 
exclaimed Joyce, impulsively, as she fin- 
ished. “ I wish I had a beautiful big 
home, and I would adopt her for my 
grandmother. She should have a great 
lovely room, where the sun shines in all 
day long, and it should be furnished in 
rose-colour like the one that she had when 
she was a girl. I’d dress her in gray satin 
and soft white lace. She has the prettiest 
silvery hair, and beautiful dark eyes. 
She would make a lovely grandmother. 
And I would have a maid to wait on her, 
and there’d be mignonette always grow- 
ing in boxes on the window-sill. Every 
time I came back from town, I’d bring 
169 


(Giant Stmm 


her a present just for a nice litle surprise; 
and I’d read to her, and sing to her, and 
make her feel that she belonged to some- 
body, so that she’d be happy all the rest 
of her days. 

“ Yesterday while I was there she was 
holding a little cut-glass vinaigrette. It 
had a big D engraved on the silver top. 
She said that it was the only thing that 
she had left except her wedding-ring, and 
that it was to be Sister Denisa’s when 
she was gone. The D stands for both 
their names. Hers is Desire. She said 
the vinaigrette was too precious to part 
with as long as she lives, because her 
oldest brother gave it to her on her 
twelfth birthday, when she was exactly 
as old as I am. Isn’t Desire a pretty 
name? ” 

“ Mademoiselle,” called Monsieur Ci- 
seaux from the next room, “ mademoi- 
selle, will you come — will you tell me 
170 




isdmwflT e'JRcnJ ! ei sda sisdS 
" * TIsq nwo gtm isd t sno 


44 * Gbere sbe Is ! that's IRumber tlblrtE* 
one, ber verg own self ' ” 





s 


» 







■ 
































. 

























































































































^ (Slant <Sctggorg ^ 


— what name was that? Desire, did you 
say? ” 

There was something so strange in the 
way he called that name Desire, almost 
like a cry, that Joyce sprang up, startled, 
and ran into the next room. She had 
never ventured inside before. 

“ Tell me again what you were telling 
Jules,” said the old man. “ Seventy-three 
years, did you say? And how long has 
she been back in France? ” 

Joyce began to answer his rapid ques- 
tions, but stopped with a frightened cry 
as her glance fell on a large portrait 
hanging over the mantel. “ There she 
is ! ” she cried, excitedly dancing up and 
down as she pointed to the portrait. 
“ There she is! That’s Number Thirty- 
one, her very own self.” 

“You are mistaken!” cried the old 
man, attempting to rise from his chair, 
but trembling so that he could scarcely 
171 


^ gj )t (Slant Scissors ^ 

pull himself up on his feet. “ That is a 
picture of my mother, and Desire is dead ; 
long dead.” 

“ But it is exactly like Number Thirty- 
one, — I mean Madame Desire,” persisted 
Joyce. 

Monsieur looked at her wildly from 
under his shaggy brows, and then, turn- 
ing away, began to pace up and down the 
room. “ I had a sister once,” he began. 

“ She would have been seventy-three this 
month, and her name was Desire.” 

Joyce stood motionless in the middle of 
the room, wondering what was coming 
next. Suddenly turning with a violence 
that made her start, he cried, “No, I 
never can forgive! She has been dead 
to me nearly a lifetime. Why did you 
tell me this, child? Out of my sight! 

What is it to me if she is homeless and 
alone? Go! Go!” 

He waved his hands so wildly in mo- 
172 


®fje (Giant Scissors 




0 

tioning her away, that Joyce ran out of 
the room and banged the door behind her. 

“ What do you suppose is the matter 
with him? ” asked Jules, in a frightened 
whisper, as they listened to his heavy 
tread, back and forth, back and forth, 
in the next room. 

Joyce shook her head. “ I don’t know 
for sure,” she answered, hesitatingly, 
“ but I believe that he is going crazy.” 

Jules’s eyes opened so wide that Joyce 
wished she had not frightened him. “ Oh, 
you know that I didn’t mean it,” she said, 
reassuringly. The heavy tread stopped, 
and the children looked at each other. 

“ What can he be doing now? ” Jules 
asked, anxiously. 

Joyce tiptoed across the room, and 
peeped through the keyhole. “ He is sit- 
ting down now, by the table, with his 
head on his arms. He looks as if he 
might be crying about something.” 

173 


gflje (Stant Scissors 


“ I wish he didn’t feel bad,” said Jules, 
with a swift rush of pity. “ He has been 
so good to me ever since he sent Brossard 
away. Sometimes I think that he must 
feel as much alone in the world as I do, 
because all his family are dead, too. Be- 
fore I broke my leg I was making him 
a little Christmas tree, so that he need 
not feel left out when we had the big 
one. I was getting mistletoe for it when 
I fell. I can’t finish it now, but there’s 
five pieces of candle on it, and I’ll get 
Clotilde to light them while the fete is 
going on, so that I’ll not miss the big 
tree so much. Oh, nobody knows how 
much I want to go to that fete! Some- 
times it seems more than I can bear to 
have to stay away.” 

“ Where is your tree?” asked Joyce. 
“ May I see it? ” 

Jules pointed to the closet. “ It’s in 
there,” he said, proudly. “ I trimmed it 
i74 


& 


^ Ei )t (Slant Scissors ^ 

with pieces that Marie swept up to burn. 
Oh, shut the door! Quick! ” he cried, ex- 
citedly, as a step was heard in the hall. 
“ I don’t want anybody to see it before 
the time comes.” 

The step was Henri’s. He had come 
to say that Marie was waiting to take 
mademoiselle home. Joyce was glad of 
the interruption. She could not say any- 
thing in praise of the poor little tree, and 
she knew that Jules expected her to. She 
felt relieved that Henri’s presence made 
it impossible for her to express any opin- 
ion. 

She bade Jules good-bye gaily, but 
went home with such a sober little face 
that Cousin Kate began to question her 
about her visit. Madame, sitting by the 
window with her embroidery-frame, heard 
the account also. Several times she 
looked significantly across at Cousin 
Kate, over the child’s head. 

i75 


&\jt ffiiant Scissors 




& 


“ Joyce,” said Cousin Kate, “ you have 
had so little outdoor exercise since Jules’s 
accident that it would be a good thing 
for you to run around in the garden 
awhile before dark.” 

Joyce had not seen madame’s glances, 
but she felt vaguely that Cousin Kate 
was making an excuse to get rid of her. 
She was disappointed, for she thought 
that her account of monsieur’s queer ac- 
tions and Jules’s little tree would have 
made a greater impression on her audi- 
ence. She went out obediently, walking 
up and down the paths with her hands 
in her jacket pockets, and her red tam- 
o’shanter pulled down over her eyes. 
The big white cat followed her, ran on 
ahead, and then stopped, arching its back 
s if waiting for her to stroke it. Taking 
no notice of it, Joyce turned aside to the 
pear-tree, and climbed up among the 
branches. 



176 


^ g&ftg &iant Scissors ^ 

The cat rubbed against the tree, mew- 
ing and purring by turns, then sprang 
up in the tree after her. She took the 
warm, furry creature in her arms and 
began talking to it. 

“ Oh, Solomon,” she said, “ what do 
you suppose is the matter over there? 
My poor old lady must be monsieur’s sis- 
ter, or she couldn’t have looked exactly 
like that picture, and he would not have 
acted so queerly. What do you suppose 
it is that he can never forgive? Why did 
he call me in there and then drive me 
out in such a crazy way, and tramp 
around the room, and put his head down 
on his arms as if he were crying? ” 

Solomon purred louder and closed his 
eyes. 

“ Oh, you dear, comfortable old thing,” 
exclaimed Joyce, giving the cat a shake. 
“ Wake up and take some interest in what 
I am saying. I wish you were as smart 
177 


)t ffiiant Scissors 


as Puss in Boots; then maybe you could 
find out what is the matter. How I wish 
fairy-tales could be true ! I’d say ‘ Giant 
scissors, right the wrong and open the 
gate that’s been shut so long.’ There! 
Did you hear that, Solomon Greville? I 
said a rhyme right off without waiting to 
make it up. Then the scissors would leap 
down and cut the misunderstanding or 
trouble or whatever it is, and the gate 
would fly open, and there the brother and 
sister would meet each other. All the 
unhappy years would be forgotten, and 
they’d take each other by the hand, just 
as they did when they were little chil- 
dren, Martin and Desire, and go into the 
old home together, — on Christmas Day, 
in the morning.” 

Joyce was half-singing her words now, 
as she rocked the cat back and forth in 
her arms. “ And then the scissors would 
bring Jules a magnificent big tree, and 
178 


& 


^ Ej )t &iant grissors ^ 


he’d never be afraid of his uncle any 
more. Oh, they’d all have such a happy 
time on Christmas Day, in the morning ! ” 

Joyce had fully expected to be home- 
sick all during the holidays; but now she 
was so absorbed in other people’s troub- 
les, and her day-dreams to make every 
body happy, that she forgot all about her- 
self. She fairly bubbled over with the 
peace and good-will of the approaching 
Christmas-tide, and rocked the cat back 
and forth in the pear-tree to the tune of 
a happy old-time carol. 

A star or two twinkled out through the 
gloaming, and, looking up beyond them 
through the infinite stretches of space, 
Joyce thought of a verse that she and 
Jack had once learned together, one rainy 
Sunday at her Grandmother Ware’s, sit- 
ting on a little stool at the old lady’s 
feet: 

“ Behold thou hast made the heaven 


179 


®j)e CErtant Scissors 


and the earth by thy great power and 
outstretched arm, and there is nothing 
too hard for thee/’ Her heart gave a 
bound at the thought. Why should she 
be sitting there longing for fairy-tales to 
be true, when the great Hand that had 
set the stars to swinging could bring any- 
thing to pass; could even open that long- 
closed gate and bring the brother and 
sister together again, and send happiness 
to little Jules? 

Joyce lifted her eyes again and looked 
up, out past the stars. “ Oh, if you 
please, God,” she whispered, “ for the lit- 
tle Christ-child’s sake.” 

When Joyce went back to the house, 
Cousin Kate sat in the drawing-room 
alone. Madame had gone over to see 
Jules, and did not return until long after 
dark. Berthe had been in three times to 
ask monsieur if dinner should be served, 
before they heard her ring at the gate. 

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& 


When she finally came, there was such 
an air of mystery about her that Joyce 
was puzzled. All that next morning, too, 
the day before Christmas, it seemed to 
Joyce as if something unusual were afloat. 
Everybody in the house was acting 
strangely. 

Madame and Cousin Kate did not come 
home to lunch. She had been told that 
she must not go to see Jules until after- 
noon, and the doors of the room where 
the Christmas tree was kept had all been 
carefully locked. She thought that the 
morning never would pass. It was nearly 
three o’clock when she started over to 
see Jules. To her great surprise, as she 
ran lightly up the stairs to his room, she 
saw her Cousin Kate hurrying across the 
upper hall, with a pile of rose-coloured 
silk curtains in her arms. 

Jules tried to raise himself up in bed 
as Joyce entered, forgetting all about his 
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®{j t ffitant Scissors 


broken leg in his eagerness to tell the 
news. “ Oh, what do you think ! ” he 
cried. “ They said that I might be the 
one to tell you. She is Uncle Martin’s 
sister, the old woman you told about yes- 
terday, and he is going to bring her home 
to-morrow.” 

Joyce sank into a chair with a little 
gasp at the suddenness of his news. She 
had not expected this beautiful ending of 
her day-dreams to be brought about so 
soon, although she had hoped that it 
would be sometime. 

“ How did it all happen? ” she cried, 
with a beaming face. “ Tell me about it ! 
Quick! ” 

“ Yesterday afternoon madame came 
over soon after you left. She gave me 
my wine jelly, and then went into Uncle 
Martin’s room, and talked and talked for 
the longest time. After she had gone he 
did not eat any dinner, and I think that 


0 


Eijt CKtant Scissors ^ 


he must have sat up all night, for I heard 
him walking around every time that I 
waked up. Very early this morning, 
madame came back again, and M. Gre- 
ville was with her. They drove with 
Uncle Martin to the Little Sisters of the 
Poor. I don’t know what happened out 
there, only that Aunt Desire is to be 
brought home to-morrow. 

“Your Cousin Kate was with them 
when they came back, and they had 
brought all sorts of things with them 
from Tours. She is in there now, mak- 
ing Aunt Desire’s room look like it did 
when she was a girl.” 

“ Oh, isn’t it lovely! ” exclaimed Joyce. 
“ It is better than all the fairy-tales that 
I have ever read or heard, — almost too 
good to be true! ” Just then Cousin Kate 
called her, and she ran across the hall. 
Standing in the doorway, she looked all 
around the freshly furnished room, that 
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®{je ffitatrt Scissors 


glowed with the same soft, warm pink 
that colours the heart of a shell. 

“ How beautiful!” cried Joyce, glanc- 
ing from the rose on the dressing-table to 
the soft curtains of the windows, which 
all opened toward the morning sun. 
“ What a change it will be from that big 
bare dormitory with its rows of narrow 
little cots.” She tiptoed around the room, 
admiring everything, and smiling over 
the happiness in store for poor old Num- 
ber Thirty-one, when she should find her- 
self in the midst of such loveliness. 

Joyce’s cup of pleasure was so full, that 
it brimmed over when they turned to 
leave the room. Cousin Kate slipped an 
arm around her, and kissed her softly on 
the forehead. 

“ You dear little fairy-tale lover,” she 
said. “ Do you know that it is because 
of you that this desert has blossomed? 
If you had never made all those visits to 
184 


& 


^ El )t ffiiant Sctgsorg ^ 

the Little Sisters of the Poor, and had 
never won old Madame Desire’s love and 
confidence by your sympathy, if you had 
never told Jules the story of the giant 
scissors, and wished so loud that you 
could fly to her rescue, old monsieur 
would never have known that his sister 
is living. Even then, I doubt if he would 
have taken this step, and brought her 
back home to live, if your stories of your 
mother and the children had not brought 
his own childhood back to him. He said 
that he used to sit there hour after hour, 
and hear you talk of your life at home, 
until some of its warmth and love crept 
into his own frozen old heart, and thawed 
out its selfishness and pride.” 

Joyce lifted her radiant face, and looked 
toward the half-opened window, as she 
caught the sound of chimes. Across the 
Loire came the deep-toned voice of a 
cathedral bell, ringing for vespers. 

185 


^ )t &iant .Scissors ^ 


“ Listen! ” she cried. “ Peace on earth, 
— good-will — oh, Cousin Kate ! It really 
does seem to say it! My Christmas has 
begun the day before.” 


186 


^ E\ )t ffiiant Scissors ^ 


CHAPTER X 

CHRISTMAS 




ONG before the Christmas 



dawn was bright enough, | 



to bring the blue parrots 



into plain view on the 

X 


walls of Joyce’s room, she 
had climbed out of bed to 


look for her “ messages from Noel.” The 
night before, following the old French 
custom, she had set her little slippers jus 
outside the threshold. Now, candle in 
hand, she softly slipped to the door and 
peeped out into the hall. Her first eager 
glance showed that they were full. 

Climbing back into her warm bed, she 
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®!jc CKiant Scissors 


put the candle on the table beside it, and 
began emptying the slippers. They were 
filled with bonbons and all sorts of little 
trifles, such as she and Jules had admired 
in the gay shop windows. On the top 
of one madame had laid a slender silver 
pencil, and monsieur a pretty purse. In 
the other was a pair of little wooden 
shoes, fashioned like the ones that Jules 
had worn when she first knew him. They 
were only half as long as her thumb, and 
wrapped in a paper on which was written 
that Jules himself had whittled them out 
for her, with Henri’s help and instruc- 
tions. 

“ What little darlings ! ” exclaimed 
Joyce. “ I hope he will think as much 
of the scrap-book that I made for him as 
I do of these. I know that he will be 
pleased with the big microscope that 
Cousin Kate bought for him. ,, 

She spread all the things out on the 
1 88 


& 


^ gTtje dSdmt Scissors ^ 

table, and gave the slippers a final shake. 
A red morocco case, no larger than half a 
dollar, fell out of the toe of one of them. 
Inside the case was a tiny buttonhole 
watch, with its wee hands pointing to 
six o’clock. It was the smallest watch 
that Joyce had ever seen, Cousin Kate’s 
gift. Joyce could hardly keep back a lit- 
tle squeal of delight. She wanted to wake 
up everybody on the place and show it. 
Then she wished that she could be back 
in the brown house, showing it to her 
mother and the children. For a moment, 
as she thought of them, sharing the pleas- 
ure of their Christmas stockings without 
her, a great wave of homesickness swept 
over her, and she lay back on the pillow 
with that miserable, far-away feeling 
that, of all things, makes one most des- 
olate. 

Then she heard the rapid “ tick, tick, 
tick, tick,” of the little watch, and was 
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K \ je ffitant Scissors 


comforted. She had not realized before 
that time could go so fast. Now thirty 
seconds were gone; then sixty. At this 
rate it could not be such a very long time 
before they would be packing their trunks 
to start home; so Joyce concluded not 
to make herself unhappy by longing for 
the family, but to get as much pleasure 
as possible out of this strange Christmas 
abroad. 

That little watch seemed to make the 
morning fly. She looked at it at least 
twenty times an hour. She had shown 
it to every one in the house, and was 
wishing that she could take it over to 
Jules for him to see, when Monsieur 
Ciseaux’s carriage stopped at the gate. 
He was on his way to the Little Sisters 
of the Poor, and had come to ask Joyce 
to drive with him to bring his sister 
home. 

He handed her into the carriage as if 
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she had been a duchess, and then seemed 
to forget that she was beside him; for 
nothing was said all the way. As the 
horses spun along the road in the keen 
morning air, the old man was busy with 
his memories, his head dropped forward 
on his breast. The child watched him, 
entering into this little drama as sympa- 
thetically as if she herself were the for- 
lorn old woman, and this silent, white- 
haired man at her side were Jack. 

Sister Denisa came running out to meet 
them, her face shining and her eyes glis- 
tening with tears. “ It is for joy that I 
weep,” she exclaimed, “ that poor ma- 
dame should have come to her own again. 
See the change that has already been 
made in her by the blessed news.” 

Joyce looked down the corridor as mon- 
sieur hurried forward to meet the old lady 
coming toward them, and to offer his 
arm. Hope had straightened the bowed 
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figure; joy had put lustre into her dark 
eyes and strength into her weak frame. 

She walked with such proud stateliness 
that the other inmates of the home looked 
up at her in surprise as she passed. She 
was no more like the tearful, broken- 
spirited woman who had lived among 
them so long than her threadbare dress 
was like the elegant mantle which mon- 
sieur had brought to fold around her. 

Joyce had brought a handful of roses 
to Sister Denisa, who caught them up 
with a cry of pleasure, and held them 
against her face as if they carried with 
them some sweetness of another world. 

Madame came up then, and, taking the 
nun in her arms, tried to thank her for 
all that she had done, but could find no 
words for a gratitude so deep, and turned 
away, sobbing. 

They said good-bye to Sister Denisa, 

— brave Little Sister of the Poor, whose 
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only joy was the pleasure of unselfish 
service; who had no time to even stand 
at the gate and be a glad witness of other 
people’s Christmas happiness, but must 
hurry back to her morning task of deal- 
ing out coffee and clean handkerchiefs 
to two hundred old paupers. No, there 
were only a hundred and ninety-nine now. 
Down the streets, across the Loire, into 
the old village and out again, along the 
wide Paris road, one of them was going 
home. 

The carriage turned and went for a 
little space between brown fields and 
closely clipped hedgerows, and then ma- 
dame saw the windows of her old home 
flashing back the morning sunlight over 
the high stone wall. Again the carriage 
turned, into the lane this time, and now 
the sunlight was caught up by the scis- 
sors over the gate, and thrown dazzlingly 
down into their faces. 


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^ E\ )t ffiiant &tmox8 ^ 


Monsieur smiled as he looked at Joyce, 
a tender, gentle smile that one would 
have supposed never could have been seen 
on those harsh lips. She was almost 
standing up in the carriage, in her ex- 
citement. 

“ Oh, it has come true ! ” she cried, 
clasping her hands together. “ The gates 
are really opening at last ! ” 

Yes, the Ogre, whatever may have been 
its name, no longer lived. Its spell was 
broken, for now the giant scissors no 
longer barred the way. Slowly the great 
gate swung open, and the carriage passed 
through. 

Joyce sprang out and ran on ahead 
to open the door. Hand in hand, 
just as when they were little children, 
Martin and Desire, this white-haired 
brother and sister, went back to the old 
home together; and it was Christmas 
Day, in the morning. 

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At five o’clock that evening the sound 
of Gabriel’s accordeon went echoing up 
and down the garden, and thirty little 
children were marching to its music along 
the paths, between the rows of blooming 
laurel. Joyce understood, now, why the 
room where the Christmas tree stood had 
been kept so carefully locked. For two 
days that room had been empty and the 
tree had been standing in Monsieur Ci- 
seaux’s parlour. Cousin Kate and ma- 
dame and Berthe and Marie and Gabriel 
had all been over there, busily at work, 
and neither she nor Jules had suspected 
what was going on down-stairs. 

Now she marched with the others, out 
of the garden and across the road, keep- 
ing time to the music of the wheezy old 
accordeon that Gabriel played so proudly. 
Surely every soul, in all that long pro- 
cession filing through the gate of the 
giant scissors, belonged to the kingdom 
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^ gUje '(Riant &tmoxz ^ 

of loving hearts and gentle hands; for 
they were all children who passed 
through, or else mothers who carried in 
their arms the little ones who, but for 
these faithful arms, must have missed this 
Noel fete. 

Jules had been carried down-stairs and 
laid on a couch in the corner of the room 
where he could see the tree to its best 
advantage. Beside him sat his great- 
aunt, Desire, dressed in a satin gown of 
silvery gray that had been her mother’s, 
and looking as if she had just stepped out 
from the frame of the portrait up-stairs. 

She held Jules’s hand in hers, as if with 
it she grasped the other Jules, the little 
brother of the olden days for whom this 
child had been named. And she told him 
stories of his grandfather and his father. 

Then Jules found that this Aunt Desire 
had known his mother; had once sat on 
the vine-covered porch while he ran after 
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0 

fireflies on the lawn in his little white 
dress; had heard the song the voice still 
sang to him in his dreams: 

“ Till the stars and the angels come to keep 
Their watch where my baby lies fast asleep.” 

When she told him this, with her hand 
stroking his and folding it tight with 
many tender little claspings, he felt that 
he had found a part of his old home, too, 
as well as Aunt Desire. 

One by one the tapers began to glow 
on the great tree, and when it was all 
ablaze the doors were opened for the 
children to flock in. They stood about 
the room, bewildered at first, for not one 
of them had ever seen such a sight be- 
fore; a tree that glittered and sparkled 
and shone, that bore stars and rainbows 
and snow wreaths and gay toys. At first 
they only drew deep, wondering breaths, 
and looked at 'each other with shining 
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El )g (Kiant gctssorg ^ 

eyes. It was all so beautiful and so 
strange. 

Joyce flew here and there, helping to 
distribute the gifts, feeling her heart 
grow warmer and warmer as she watched 
the happy children. “ My little daughter 
never had anything like that in all her 
life,” said one grateful mother, as Joyce 
laid a doll in the child’s outstretched 
arms. “ She’ll never forget this to her 
dying day, nor will any of us, dear made- 
moiselle! We knew not what it was to 
have so beautiful a Noel!” 

When the last toy had been stripped 
from the branches, it was Cousin Kate’s 
turn to be surprised. At a signal from 
madame, the children began circling 
around the tree, singing a song that the 
sisters at the village school had taught 
them for the occasion. It was a happy 
little song about the green pine-tree, king 
of all trees and monarch of the woods, 

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because of the crown he yearly wears at 
Noel. At the close every child came up 
to madame and Cousin Kate and Joyce, 
to say “ Thank you, madame,” and 
“ Good night,” in the politest way pos- 
sible. 

Gabriel’s accordeon led them out again, 
and the music, growing fainter and 
fainter, died away in the distance; but 
in every heart that heard it had been 
born a memory whose music could never 
be lost, — the memory of one happy 
Christmas. 

Joyce drew a long breath when it was 
all over, and, with her arm around Ma- 
dame Desire’s shoulder, smiled down at 
Jules. 

“ How beautifully it has all ended ! ” 
she exclaimed. “ I am sorry that we have 
come to the place to say 4 and they all 
lived happily ever after,’ for that means 
that it is time to shut the book.” 


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“ Dear heart/’ murmured Madame De- 
sire, drawing the child closer to her, “ it 
means that a far sweeter story is just 
beginning, and it is you who have opened 
the book for me.” 

Joyce flushed with pleasure, saying, “ I 
thought this Christmas would be so 
lonely; but it has been the happiest of 
my life.” 

“ And mine, too,” said Monsieur Ci- 
seaux from the other side of Jules’s couch. 
He took the little fellow’s hand in his. 
“ They told me about the tree that you 
prepared for me. I have been up to look 
at it, and now I have come to thank you.” 
To the surprise of every one in the room, 
monsieur bent over and kissed the flushed 
little face on the pillow. Jules reached 
up, and, putting his arms around his 
uncle’s neck, laid his cheek a moment 
against the face of his stern old kinsman. 
Not a word was said, but in that silent 


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& 

caress every barrier of coldness and re- 
serve was for ever broken down between 
them. So the little Prince came into his 
kingdom, — the kingdom of love and real 
home happiness. 


It is summer now, and far away in the 
little brown house across the seas Joyce 
thinks of her happy winter in France and 
the friends that she found through the 
gate of the giant scissors. And still those 
scissors hang over the gate, and may be 
seen to this day, by any one who takes 
the trouble to walk up the hill from the 
little village that lies just across the river 
Loire, from the old town of Tours. 


THE END. 



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